


Some Sort of Freedom

by TigerDragon



Category: Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Betrayal, Canon-Typical Violence, Dubiously Consensual Blow Jobs, F/M, Family Secrets, Female Loki, Genderbending, Loki Feels, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Oblivious Thor, Pseudo-Incest, Rope Bondage, Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-11
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-02-24 23:04:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 28,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2599784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TigerDragon/pseuds/TigerDragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It probably wasn't a good idea to bring a frost giant child back to Asgard in the first place, but when that child turns out to be a girl - well, most of the time - the complications get a little more interesting. Especially for a certain God of Thunder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing good once in a year._

_\--Voltaire_

To those who did not call them home, there was but little to recommend the lands of Jotunheim - endless cold, endless darkness, spires of ice and fathomless chasms. And the wildlife, of course - there was always the wildlife. A compendium of larger, deadlier and more ugly creatures would be difficult to assemble even for a god.

There were, however, the jotuns - the frost giants - themselves. Cruel, greedy, arrogant, vindictive. And ambitious - always ambitious.

They could be useful, in their fashion.

Take Byleist, for instance - son of Laufey, scion of Jotunheim, braggart and restless young princeling. The sort of young man eaten up with the need to earn his father’s respect and the adulation of his friends. The sort of young man who might be persuaded to do something rash (not to say stupid).

“And why would I take your word, Asgardian witch? Do you hate your kin so much that you’d betray them? More likely you lay a trap for me.” Of course, if he were really worried about that, he’d have thrown her out instead of asking questions. _Please, tiny goddess, lie to me._

“Normally, you would be entirely right. But of course, there are two countervailing considerations.” Loki, goddess of mischief and princess of Asgard, was entirely in her element - dancing on air and weaving solid fact from dreams. She smiled her most charming smile and spread her gloved hands, affecting a shiver in the cold she did not feel. “The first is the very generous sum of gold you will be paying me after - far more than this pittance of an advance you’ve so generously agreed to - and the second is a more personal consideration. If you should happen in the course of your activities to come across the captain of the night’s guard - Brietta, daughter of Ran, who you will know by her fine silver hair and pale green eyes - it would be most convenient for me if she were to suffer an unfortunate accident of the fatal variety.”

Byleist sneered. “Gold and for someone else to do your dirty work. Feckless greed.” She affected haughty offense, because it was to be expected and the jotun would enjoy it. Then the Jotun prince smiled. “Motives I trust. So be it - you let myself and a few men into the vaults of Asgard, and in return you will be handsomely paid with coin and death.”

“I thank you, wise prince, and take my leave.” She turned, drawing her cloak about her, but paused when one of Byleist’s companions shouted after her.

The words hung thick on the air, rich with contempt. “What did this woman do to you, witch?”

“Brietta?” Loki smiled out into the night. “She holds the eye of a man of whom she is unworthy. A man I would see do better.”

Byleist laughed. “A woman willing to fight for what she wants. If you were not so lacking in stature, witch, I might have you for myself. Good hunting.”

She went out into the icy blast wrapped into his laughter, holding her own like a bright fire against her heart. _And so, my brother, you will have a glorious victory on your coronation day and a war to win after should it please you to pursue it. And I? Well, I shall be by your side. A pity about Brietta, of course, should mischance catch up to her. It could not befall a more pleasant woman._

Her smile was colder than the Jotunheim wind.

* * *

 

> **Asgard, Not So Long Ago**
> 
> “Going so soon, Princess?” Sif inquired dryly. “Truly, we are bereft without your company.”
> 
> Her hand but on the edge of the table, Loki smiled her most beguiling smile. “I would stay, gentle Sif, if you would but make a place for me upon your bench. No? My company is not sufficiently a jewel to pay for such accommodation?”
> 
> Sif narrowed her eyes. “What are you up to now, trickster?”
> 
> “My, how you look at me. Are you going to check my dress for stolen silver? Because I think that could be enjoyable if you’re thorough enough.” Loki stood from the table, laughing at the expression of revulsion which disturbed Sif’s fair features, and passed down the long tables to draw herself a fresh horn of mead. She could have shouted for a servant, of course, but there was a limit to how deeply she could needle Sif without expecting the warrior goddess to lose her temper. And that would make a most unfortunate scene at her father’s party....
> 
> “Allow me, my Lady,” said Forseti in his smooth tenor. A well-groomed hand plucked the horn from Loki’s fingers, filled it, and handed it back to the sorceress. “I am more than happy to serve a lady so fair.”
> 
> “If only your service was as deft as your speech,” she retorted, her lips curving up at the corners in a mocking smile, “then perhaps she might consider it.”
> 
> The god’s eyes narrowed, and he gave a single tight laugh. “You seemed plenty satisfied with my services earlier. Or are your insults but to whet my appetite?” he murmured, laying a hand on her waist. “You do enjoy all manner of games.”
> 
> “Not all manner.” She pressed her hand to his chest, forcing a measure of distance and gauging his grip. She could have simply applied her knee to what passed him for a prick, but that would be crude. Unladylike. Besides, she had better tools. “And if you believed me satisfied, I can only conclude you have never actually seen a woman sated. Which I suppose I ought not blame you for - a man can only do so much on a battlefield with a kitchen knife.”
> 
> Forseti’s jaw set and his hand tightened on her waist. “Two-faced whore,” he hissed, “I’ll show you--”
> 
> “UNHAND HER!” The prince’s roar filled the hall and Forseti had only half a second to look startled before a broad hand fell on his shoulder and hauled him bodily away from Loki. Savage and electric with fury, Thor seemed possessed by a force threefold his own, larger than the space he occupied and more terrible than any mere individual could be, god or no. He threw Forseti onto the feasting table as if he weighed nothing, guests and dishes scattering.
> 
> “You will not touch Loki!” Thor’s fist slammed into Forseti’s face. Blood spattered on the table’s smooth metal surface. Forseti scrabbled at the mess of food and dishes but came up empty-handed before he could defend himself. “You will not speak to her!” Another blow, this one to the man’s stomach, a solid wet thump accompanying his cry of pain. “You will not look upon her!” Now on the table himself, Thor laid blow after devastating blow upon the mediator in rhythm with his wordless bellows.
> 
> _Ah, brother._ Peering up through her hair at the would-be suitor Thor was beating into a pulp, Loki buried a smile against her heart. _You never have been very subtle, but it’s difficult to complain about your results. Do be careful not to cut yourself on his teeth...._
> 
> “Enough!” Sif was at Thor’s side, using her whole weight to drag his arm down. “The Allfather has not sentenced him to death!”
> 
> Snarling at his sister-in-arms, Thor growled, laid another blow on Forseti despite her efforts, then dropped the broken man in a heap and stood. “If he accosts my sister again, Father will not have to.”
> 
> “Thor,” Loki murmured without rising from where she had allowed herself to fall after he removed Forseti’s grip on her, drawing her hair back from her face to look up at him. Now that it was done, after all, there was no harm and much good in being a quelling influence.
> 
> Especially in being seen to be.
> 
> When his eyes fell on her, much of the madness in them drained away. “Loki,” he said, laying gentle hands on her shoulders. Forseti’s blood soaked unnoticed into the black of her gown. “You are unhurt?”
> 
> “Merely shaken, brother,” she told him before he could start thundering dire threats again. Not that she wouldn't have enjoyed them, but this wasn’t the time. Perhaps later, once they were alone. “Nothing that a quiet hour in peace won’t cure. I was not frightened for a moment, knowing that you were here with me.”
> 
> “I will never let anything harm you, sister,” Thor promised. He opened his mouth to say something else, but the Allfather’s staff struck the marble floor.
> 
> “Carry Forseti to the healers,” Odin commanded the four guards hovering by the table. Servants were already clearing away the mess and calling for more food. The feast had been interrupted, yes, but would hardly be cancelled for a simple beating.
> 
> “Thor,” Odin sighed. This was not the first time Loki had heard that tone of voice, or even the twentieth. “Go to your quarters and do not leave until I send for you.” Which would be the next afternoon, perhaps the morning after that if Odin had been truly vexed - cooping Thor up longer than that tended to result in broken furniture. At which point the Allfather would mete out some small punishment - no feasting or mead for a few weeks, something of that nature - and Thor’s assault would fade into the background of fistfights and drunken brawls of his life.
> 
> It was not, after all, as if Loki provoked her brother to be a violent man. It was just that sometimes it became convenient to guide some irritating ship into that particular storm and watch it wreck on the rocks.
> 
> She brushed her hand against her brother’s in silent reassurance, the unspoken promise that - as ever - she would be sneaking into his room by the window later. Or perhaps the loose stone in the floor, this time, just for the sake of variety. But that was for later. At the moment, Thor needed to go quietly and she needed to simper for the Allfather.
> 
> Well, perhaps simper was overstating the case, but be charming at least. A little charm in the right places could go a long way.

* * *

For a place that had seen the deaths of two jotuns and an Asgardian, the Vault was surprisingly clean. The servants were nothing if not diligent. No guard noted Loki’s passing, for she went unseen and unheard as was her way, but she was not at peace. Something gnawed at the root of her being, something thrashing and sharp-toothed and ugly, and she could not quiet it. Perhaps her brother could have, but Thor was banished to Midgard and she did not yet dare go to him. Not while Odin watched the Bifrost and Heimdall cast his gaze over all the secret ways.

But she could not be at peace until she had quieted that gnawing, and so she had come to the Vault seeking the same prize for which the jotun had died.

The Casket of Winters stormed silently on its pedestal at the nadir of the sloping room. Loki wrapped both her hands around it and lifted. Released from its stasis, the power inside crackled in readiness, yearning to be unleashed. The same crystalline tingle she’d felt at the Jotun’s touch began in her hands and spread up her wrists, arms, all the way to her chest and throat, her face, her waist. Her skin became hard, so cold her clothing began to stiffen and the water of the air condensed upon her cheeks in a rime of frost, and its color was the blue of the deep lakes in the mountains.

When she laid it again upon its pedestal, her hands trembled so fiercely that she feared she might well cast it to the floor.

“Loki!” Odin’s call rang out, demanding response.

She did not turn around quite yet. She would not let him see her fear.

“Am I cursed?” Less likely than the alternative, but she much preferred it. Pleasingly, her voice did not tremble.

The quality of the air changed - Odin’s anger receding. “No.”

“Then what am I?” Her hands were still now. Still and hard and cold as stone.

“My daughter.” Said as a truth, but not the whole truth.

Odin did not flinch as she turned, though her face and hands were still ice. “What more?”

The Allfather said nothing. That was all the answer she needed. “The Casket wasn’t the only thing you took from Jotunheim that day, was it? Was it, Allfather?”

She couldn’t tell if Odin’s discomfiture was unhappiness for her distress or regret that his lies had been discovered.

“No.” Admission. Confession. Her eyes ached with frozen tears that she could not, would not shed. Not for him. Not ever.

She did not speak, but the question did not need to be spoken to burn in the air like a brand.

“You were an innocent child, left to die in the cold. I could not leave you.” Again, part of the truth.

She was not ice now - not ice, no, but fire.  “Pretty words, father. Save them for some mortal princeling who believes your myths. _Why?!_ ”

He took a breath, as if he knew that telling would not placate her but did so anyway. It was infuriating. “I had hoped to build a lasting peace. Through you. A king is always thinking of his people. But it does not change the fact that you are my daughter.”

“Ah, I see. Tell me, father, would you have married me off to some jotun princeling? But then that would be one of my own blood, wouldn’t it, and who knows what foulness might come of that? Not to mention all the blood of theirs I now have on my hands - terribly inconvenient. An Asgardian, then? Perhaps my dear brother, once he knew I was not of his blood?” She was laughing now, the pitch escalating rapidly toward something suggestive of bats and madness, advancing on him and screaming through her own laughter. “So many uses for a simple trinket found on a battlefield. And now that you’ve no more use for me, now that your peace is in ruins and you’ve cast away your son - your only heir, for surely no frost giant witch will ever sit on the throne of Asgard - what will you do with me? Lock me down here in the vaults with all your other forbidden tools? Or will you cast me out too, father, just as you did your precious son?”

“Loki...” Odin murmured, grasping the sorceress’s forearm as he sank to the floor. Whatever else he had been trying to say was lost as he went limp, the King of Asgard helpless and unconscious on the steps of his own vault.

The Odinsleep had occurred several times during Loki’s lifetime, but this was the first she had witnessed take him. In her rage it occurred to her - if only for a moment - that it would be so very easy to crack his head open upon the stairs and say that he had fallen in his sleep. Or perhaps one of the weapons in the vault could have found its way under him.

That the thought did not make her ill just to consider left her shaking. “Guards!” She lifted her voice as fiercely as she could, as if to frighten the moment away. But her skin stayed cold, though she could see now it had returned to its color as of old, and her heart still burned.


	2. Chapter 2

The chamber of Odinsleep was in the heart of the palace. No windows, no outside walls, and several layers of guard-patrolled corridors surrounding it made it the most secure place in the realm, save the Vault. With Loki’s help, the guards brought the King to his bed with even more discretion than usual.

Frigga allowed the men to lay Odin in his bier, but let no one else arrange her husband comfortably. The guards thought it wifely devotion, which is was, but they did not know she also searched for wounds, poisons, strange artifacts, or even the not so strange. Twice her husband had had curses laid upon him in his sleep, and once he had succumbed with the talisman of his ravens yet around his neck. Fine when he was awake, but vulnerable to outside influence while he slept.

Loki dismissed the guards while Frigga worked and stood unmoving with her hands upon the closed door and eyes downcast.

The Queen of Asgard, ruler during Odinsleep, finished her ministrations and turned to Loki. The elder goddess would have searched the face of the younger, but Loki would not turn to her.

“What troubles you, Daughter?” Frigga gestured elegantly to the couch beside her. “Sit.”

“I have not the time,” Loki whispered, at last taking her hands from the surface of the door but still not turning to face Frigga. “I must be away before the dawn.”

The Queen’s gown rustled softly as she stood and came to place a gentle hand on the sorceress’s shoulder. “To where, Loki?” Though she could hide her distress from most, Frigga had always been more attuned to her daughter’s moods and thoughts. They were so alike, after all, despite everything. So where Loki could fool her father and her brother, Frigga at least knew what she did not know. “What do you plan?”

“To where I must,” Loki whispered, twisting away from that touch as if it seared her. “To Midgard, to bring Thor home.”

Ah. Of course. It was too long ago that Loki had sought the comfort and counsel of Frigga on a regular basis. Thor had been her companion and confidant throughout.

“I know his banishment weighs heavily on you,” the Queen said, not trying to touch Loki again. “But you must not interfere. I will not countermand the Allfather’s last command while he sleeps. Nor do I truly disagree with the decision, though it grieves me. Thor needs to learn humility and patience. He cannot do that if you rescue him from his own mistakes.”

Loki wheeled upon her, emerald eyes ablaze, and her voice echoed from the walls like the report of a glass shattering. “We need him here! Will we wait for the jotuns to trample Asgard under their boots and grind our bones to milch their fields while he gains humility and patience? Will the rule of Asgard depend upon a single heartbeat because of father’s lofty aspirations? I will bring him home today, tonight, before the sun passes above the Bifrost!”

Frigga drew herself to her full height, expression becoming the cold stare she could turn on those who displeased her. “An Asgardian throne that contradicts itself mere days after a decree is a show of weakness. Safer by far to maintain a consistent image. Further, Laufey has no wish to go to war, and he needs Thor’s exile to placate his people. Finally, have you no faith in our warriors? Your father asleep and your brother on Midgard do not turn us into helpless babes, Loki.”

“Brave Asgardian warriors, indeed, who do naught but drink and boast and feast.” Loki’s voice fell to a whisper, a hiss so sharp and bitter and cold that it seemed to poison the air about her. “I have seen Laufey’s holt and watched his heirs battle, and the taste of blood is fresh in their mouths. But you say Laufey wants peace, and so I shall be content that you well know his mind better than all others. Perhaps there is some reason one of his children proved a runt, eh?”

The last words were a slap in the face, and Frigga inhaled sharply, clamping down on the rage boiling in her breast. “Were you younger I would have you beaten for that,” she growled. “Would you have it thus? No, Loki,” she shook her head, and the rage subsided. “You are my daughter in my heart, but not by blood.”

“Daughter enough for a beating, but not for the truth.” Loki shook with her own rage, averting her eyes again, and her hands fisted in the deep green cloth of her skirts. “How many secrets did you teach me, mother, while you laughed at my ignorance of this one?”

With her anger gone, Frigga felt immeasurably weary. “Nothing I say now will satisfy you, truth or no.”

“Only one: let me bring Thor home,” Loki whispered, lifting those burning eyes again. “Let me bring him home, mother.”

Frigga could see the story unfolding. She forbade Loki from going, and lost more of the affection and trust of her foster daughter. Loki found a way to Midgard anyway--nothing short of imprisonment would deter her-- and returned with Thor. If she had long enough to whisper in his ear, maybe even having convinced him to stage a coup.

Or, Frigga gave Loki the blessing of the Allmother, and the war came to pass out of the rage of the jotuns and the weakness of the throne. Perhaps they would win again. But the cost would be too high.

“I will not imprison you, daughter, so you will go. But I cannot welcome you and Thor back with open arms. Not so soon.” She held out her open hand. “You will go with my blessing if you but vow not to return for a year and a day.”

“A year and a day.” Loki’s voice was quieter now, her body drawn as straight and tall as Frigga’s own, and the small nod with which she accepted was fitting for a princess of Asgard. “Very well, Allmother. As you say.”

The Queen smiled in relief and took Loki into her arms. “Go safely, my daughter, and give Thor my love.”

Loki’s tears kissed her hair. “I will, mother. I will.”

* * *

 

> **The Hall of Aegir, Ages Past**
> 
> “And here lie all the fallen heroes of Asgard - Tyr and Fandral, Hogun and Volstagg, even mighty Sif laid low at the table of Aegir and his fair daughters - but mighty Thor sits alone in his corner and but nurses the ale which he slew an army and great Hymir to win the kettle for. What troubles the prince of Asgard so, that he cannot enjoy the fruit of his victory?”
> 
> Thus spoke Loki, raven-haired and silver-tongued, who passed among those sodden with drink so that they slept like those dead. Thus spoke Loki, her emerald and sable raiment close about her, as she drew near to the bench of Thor and knelt thereby with horn of ale in hand, the blood of Tanngrisnir still beneath her nails.
> 
> Thus spoke Loki, too knowing her eyes.
> 
> “I am loath to share this melancholy with you, Sister,” Thor said. “There is nothing to be done, and so let it trouble me alone.” Quiet he was in his brooding, and still, but stone-heeled Loki set her eyes upon him and waited with the patience whose weight was as water upon stone - slow and imperceptible at first, but certain of purpose.
> 
> Thor took the horn cup from the Lady and drank his fill, yet still she watched him. Able to hold his tongue no longer, he threw the horn to the floor.
> 
> “You are as stubborn as Tanngnjóstr,” he grumbled. “If you wish to be troubled, so be it. This day I pulled Jörmungandr from the deep. Though I dealt him a great blow of Mjolnir, yet he escaped, and yet he waits for me.”
> 
> Then Loki laughed, a bright quicksilver trill, and laid her hand upon her brother's knee and pierced him with a winsome smile. “And so you brood on it, thinking of his poison and his jaws? Tsk. Fret not, my brother. I’ll set such cunning traps about him that you’ll be old as father - nay, older still - ere he ever lays eyes upon you. By then, I’ll have some trick about me to cheat Hel of her due, and so you’ll take nine steps and fall but only so long as it takes me to come and wake you and fetch some young maiden to see you roused.”
> 
> Hot anger flared in Thor’s breast, but in an instant fled, no match for his sister’s silver tongue. Instead he laughed, melancholy broken upon Loki’s certainty. “Aye, and then I shall give the serpent’s heart and blood and scales to you for your magicks, and you will trick the Jotuns into vanquishing themselves, cunning Loki.”
> 
> “Oh, mayhap. Mayhap. With a little help here and there. And then, my brother, you shall be hero and King and savior of Asgard all bound in one. As, after all, is only proper.” Loki emerald eyed, her pale and delicate hands folded beneath her chin, smiled upon her brother as one wolf looks upon another. “Say only that you will not then saddle me with some boor of a husband, and it will be so.”
> 
> “Nay,” Thor declared, thumping the table with his mighty fist. “You shall be my most wise, most trusted counselor, and you shall marry a man to your liking. I will have nothing less for my beloved sister.”
> 
> “Beloved only by you perhaps, my brother, but that jewel suffices all my greed. Now let me fetch you another mead, and no more dark thoughts lest I put them there. Why, I’ve a terrible desire to inflict a mischief on our good host’s fair daughters - the lot of them, mind you - and I’m sure they’ve much need of your virtuous protection to keep them from my wicked clutches.”

* * *

Still wet from the downpour, Thor sat slumped in the uncomfortable Midgard chair. Let him be held here. Let the Son of Coul ask him his questions. Let the archer fill him with arrows. None of it mattered, now.

Mjolnir had forsaken him. He was unworthy.

The door opened quietly, and black leather boots clicked on the hard ceramic of the floor. His eyes trailed up over neat black slacks and a long black coat embellished with a flowing green scarf, and then he caught a glimpse of the woman closing the door’s face and his heart caught in his chest.

“Loki,” Thor said in astonishment and some shame. He would not have her see him thus, but perhaps it was only right.

She touched her fingertips to her lips and then bowed to him with a delicate flourish, her voice a soft whisper in the sterile air. “My king.”

A great foreboding took the air from his lungs. “I am not king, sister. Perhaps not ever.”

“The Odinsleep has taken our father.” She knelt down before him, laying her walking stick on the floor beside her and looking up at him. “I came to bring you word.”

Loki’s face carried the same affection for him that it always had, and the same cunning and wisdom. Yet, now, there was something else. “Mother has the throne in hand, does she not?”

“Aye. She made me promise that if I came to you, I would not return for a year and a day. I gave my word gladly.” Those emerald eyes burned into his face. “But you are father’s heir and my king, regardless of what she may say.”

The faith in her eyes was a physical pain in his chest, and he looked away. “I treasure your devotion, Loki, but you must know that I am not worthy of it. Not any more.”

“Because he shouted at you and cast you out?” Her gloved hand slipped around his and drew it up so she could hold it before her, lowering her head and spilling her dark hair about her face as she kissed his bruised knuckles. “The old bastard has made an art of yelling at you. Why let his petulance grieve you so?”

The corner of Thor’s mouth twitched up. “Were it but that, I could forget it soon enough.” The bleakness overtook him again. “But Mjolnir will not answer me, and I weakened. Mortal, or nearly. No longer a mighty warrior.”

“The heap of soldiers still groaning from their injuries in this place’s infirmary say otherwise,” she murmured, lifting her face so that he could see her smile. “Cursed by some enchantment, perhaps, but still mighty enough. Have I not always cut away such charms before? If your hammer is lost to you again, we will return it to you together as in the old days.”

She looked so sure, spoke with such certainty that he could not help but take some comfort. “I am far from certain, but you give me hope, sister.” He squeezed her hand gently. “Though you may have to wait. These Agents are persistent in their duty.”

“As if I would come to you without the means to take you away from this place.” Loki’s smile turned wickedly mischievous. “We will go somewhere with a good meal and fresh raiment for you worthy of a king, and then we will see about Mjolnir.”

Thor felt himself grinning. “The Midgardians have greatly improved their food since our last visit, Loki. I will show you. And I have been staying with most gracious hosts. I think you will like their leader. She is almost as clever and wise as you are.”

“Then I must certainly meet her,” Loki said, her eyes gleaming like jade in the harsh light of the cell as she stood. “Now let us away.”

* * *

 

> **Asgard, In the Old Days**
> 
> There was no dispute in Asgard that star-eyed Brenna, attendant of Freya, was fair or that her voice was as the sweetest birdsong, nor that her disposition was like a fine spring day upon the hills of Midgard. Indeed, one could have traveled from one side of Asgard to the other without finding a single god who would heap disdain on her golden-haired head.
> 
> At least, one could do that if one avoided quicksilver-tongued Loki entirely.
> 
> “This simply will not do,” the raven-haired sorceress declared as she shook her head in mocking imitation of sorrow. “No, my mother will not be at all satisfied with these arrangements. The food, the wine, the decorative carvings - they are simply all going to have to go. I shall come back an hour before sundown and see if you’ve managed to produce something more suitable, shall I? Yes, I think so. Up, then, and carry on. Don’t pay me a moment more mind. After all, you’ve plenty to do, don’t you? There’s a girl.”
> 
> Shock, anger and betrayal plain on her face, Brenna could say nothing. Nor could she do anything except begin to clear away the refreshments and decorations she had just finished setting up. Powerless, she hefted a platter of fine pastries and left for the kitchen, nearly colliding with Lady Sif in the corridor.
> 
> The shieldmaiden gave a kind word to the lady in waiting, and was not surprised to find Loki strolling in the opposite direction. Catching up to her was easy enough that Sif suspected the witch was looking for a fight. If that was the case, the warrior would be happy to give her one.
> 
> “You are cruel to one who’s done you no ill.”
> 
> “Ah, Sif. Brave, valiant, peerless Sif. Shining gold-haired warrior of Asgard, my dear, darling, precious Sif.” Loki turned upon her heel and smiled, her hands spread wide, her expression as guileless and innocent as a child’s. “Cruel? I, cruel? Never say so. I want only to spare dear, sweet Brenna the pain of my mother’s disappointment. What could be kinder than that?”
> 
> Planting her feet firmly, Sif shook her head. “You do not fool me, trickster. It is the price you pay for the wrong you did me.”
> 
> “A minor mistake only, sweet Sif. One I will surely reverse just as soon as I discover how.” Brushing a hand through her own raven locks, Loki smiled. The air itself seemed to shiver. “I would never dream that I could deceive such a paragon of truth and understanding as my brother’s personal spear-carrier. Surely I would be undone if I but tried.”
> 
> The shieldmaiden snorted in derision. “Lying about your lies. Or do you simply mock yourself as well as the rest of us?” Blood rising, Sif took a single step forward. “But I say again that you are cruel and treacherous. You spoke to that girl as a friend not a fortnight past, and now you use her ill.”
> 
> “Ah. Well. That.” The dark mirth fell away from Loki’s voice, and what remained was hard-lipped and cruel as a Jotunheim winter. “I may have been a little more friendly to her then, yes, but that was when I thought she might prove worthy of my brother’s affections. Sadly, she disabused me of that illusion as surely as her preparations for this evening undercut my trust in her competence.”
> 
> Jaw set, Sif’s eyes flashed. “You would do better to cease your meddling. Most sisters are not so interested in their brother’s bedfellows.”
> 
> “Most sisters do not have a brother who would be quite lost without them,” Loki snapped back, drawing herself up to her full height in barely contained wrath. “But come, let us both be honest. It isn’t that I help him get what he wants that troubles you, is it, dear Sif? It’s that I’ve never helped you into his bed.”
> 
> Sif’s words forced past clenched teeth. “I’d sooner lie with a Surtr than accept help from you, witch.”
> 
> “Pity, you could use it. And my help could be had for a most reasonable price, dear Sif. Why, you would only have to ask. Unless you were dreadfully insulting.” Loki took her own step forward, parting her lips in a smile that was tauntingly coy. “In that case, I might insist upon a kiss.”
> 
> For a long moment, Sif held Loki’s eyes, pulse raging in her ears. Then she turned on her heel and strode away.
> 
> “May you choke on your jealousy,” she called out.
> 
> Emerald-eyed Loki turned away, a smile at her lips, and touched her mouth as if to savor the echo of the poisoned words. She had, after all, much mischief left to do and but a little time before her mother’s party.

* * *

Jane was gone for over an hour on the stupid hammer errand. Darcy did her best not to freak out, because Selvig was already twitchy and the last thing either of them needed was help losing their shit. Either Jane was getting herself arrested or shot or renditioned, or she wasn’t. Neither an admittedly bad-ass interdisciplinary intern nor an adorable science grandpa could do much about it, even if both of their careers were kinda depending on Jane.

“We still have some schnapps left,” Darcy told Selvig as she rummaged through the cabinet. “Want a spiked hot chocolate?”

Selvig didn’t say anything. Darcy made him one anyway.

“What are you reading? Oh, more of the myth stuff. Okay, I don’t think that’s helping take your mind of things, and I need help taking my mind of things, so we’re going to play rummy or Truth or Dare or something.”

“I suppose,” Science Gramps reluctantly agreed as Darcy pried the book out of his hands and stashed it next to the Rice Krispies. “I don’t like card games.”

Darcy grinned. “Okay. I’ll go first. Truth.”

Selvig was surprisingly good. He gave really creative dares, anyway, and his truth questions were juicy without being TMI.

“...and so, we, like, made out for a while, and she introduced me to her dog, but it wasn’t super-serious or anything. Jane! Are you okay? What happened?”

“Um.” Jane said, stumbling across to the liquor cabinet - well, okay, the cabinet with the booze in it - and staring into it like it was trying to tell her something. After a while, apparently, it did. “We are out of alcohol.”

“Yeah, sorry, there was only a little schnapps left,” Darcy explained, giving her boss a closer look. Jane was pale, and looked like she needed that drink quite a bit, but otherwise seemed okay. “Are we gonna have to run for the border or something? Where’s Thor?”

“Friends!” the man himself boomed from the parking lot. Darcy blinked. He’d been dressed in Jane’s ex’s jeans and t-shirt earlier. Now he was in a slick, gunmetal gray three-piece suit.

“Did you go shopping?” Darcy asked. “Not that you don’t look totally fierce, by the way, but the nearest outlet mall is like a hundred miles away.”

“Nay! It was a gift.” Tall, blonde and ripped was grinning like he’d gotten a pony for Christmas. “Friends, I am pleased to introduce my sister, Loki.”

A tall, black-haired woman stepped out from behind Thor, also rocking the expensive out-of-town fashion. Darcy blinked some more as Thor named everyone.

Selvig, Darcy noticed, was looking at the newcomer with a guarded expression.

“So you are my brother’s new friends.” Loki surveyed the three of them as if they were a paper that definitely needed some work before it could be published, then smiled broadly. It was the single friendliest smile that Darcy had ever seen in her life. It weirded her the hell out. Loki just plowed right on. “I see that you are bereft of refreshments. Perhaps I could be of some assistance?”

On the other hand, someone who brought wine to a first meeting couldn’t be all bad, right?

“Awesome,” Darcy said. “I’ll get glasses.”

‘Glasses’ turned out to be four water glasses and a lone chipped mug, but at least they were all clean. Their corkscrew had somehow wound up in the refrigerator, but since Darcy was used to Jane leaving things in there it didn’t take too long to track down. Speaking of Jane, she was hunkered down in the back with a look on her face that said she really didn’t want to talk, so Darcy just handed her the mug.

Jane knocked the whole thing back pretty much in one go and then held it out again.

“Oooookay. Maybe slow down a little there, boss.”

Jane just stared at her like she was speaking Mandarin. Actually, Jane spoke some Mandarin - enough to read the science journals - so more like Martian.

“Look, I’m a college student and even I know that your problems are still going to be there once you sober up. So you can tell me what’s wrong or not, but no more wine for you if you’re just going to sulk.” There. That was reasonably firm yet compassionate, right? She was great at this.

“I think he’s really a god,” Jane said numbly.

Darcy frowned. “You thought he was just adorably delusional this morning. What happened?” Hopefully the delusional wasn’t contagious.

“She walked through a fence holding his hand and then started a car just by looking at it. And then the car disappeared.”

Jane looked like she totally believed what she’d just said. Jane had not, in the three months Darcy had known her, demonstrated easy belief in things. Scientific skepticism and all that.

“Okay. Huh.”

She risked a glance back at the rest of the group. Thor was laughing and telling the story of his escape, with lots of emphasis on Loki’s awesome. Loki was sitting there looking a combination of smug and like she was doing calculus, only with people instead of numbers.

“Hey, wasn’t Loki the bad guy in those stories?”

Jane opened her mouth to say something and then froze with her eyes open and her jaw hanging off a little. Darcy stole another look over her shoulder.

Loki was waving at them.

“I have my taser,” Darcy mouthed to Jane. “Okay, boss, time to join up,” she said aloud, taking Jane’s hand and leading her over to the table. Damn. They probably shouldn’t drink any more of the wine, either. That sucked.

On the other hand, she hadn’t turned into a cockroach or something yet, so maybe one more glass would be okay.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many feels in this chapter. Also non-con and dub-con and mostly-con. Because Loki is bad at being a good person and Thor needs a lot of work on his relationship skills.
> 
> But hey, also bondage!

“Greetings, waitperson!” Thor beamed at the hostess of Garcia’s, the other restaurant in Puente Antiguo. “We three request a table and your finest chips and salsa.”

The small, dark-haired girl blinked up at the huge blonde man and smiled shyly. “Right this way.”

Menus, table, and vinyl seats alike all smelled faintly of bleach, and Loki straightened her skirt in silent disdain while she contemplated the lamentably cramped seating, the lack of a roaring fire and the distinctly unimpressive service. _We could have gone to London or Paris or somewhere that at least aspires to Asgard’s glory,_ she sighed, _but no, we are apparently to content ourselves with dinner at Garcia’s. Who is this Garcia, pray tell, and why is he not here to greet us so I can tell him how unimpressive his establishment is?_

A straw-haired girl in a vaguely attractive dress brought them water. Loki rested the plastic of the cup against her forehead and sighed.

“Are you tired, sister?” Thor inquired, concerned. “I assure you, the meal will be hearty and delicious.”

_Oh, yes, brother. I am most assuredly tired. Tired of this world, tired of sharing your company with these pathetic mortals, tired of clamping down on my tongue every time you call me sister when my heart would shout from the mountains that it is a lie. I am more tired than you can possibly begin to imagine._

“I am sure it will do me good,” she said aloud, smiling. “And mayhap mend my sore head for me.”

What passed on Midgard for a scholar darted a glance between Thor and Loki. Whether she sensed Loki’s animosity towards her or had other misgivings, Jane had been nervous for the entirety of their acquaintance. Which was only to be expected of mortals, perhaps, but was still not as pleasing as Loki would have preferred.

The serving girl returned, and Thor ordered food for everyone. Jane opened her mouth to protest, then shrugged and handed back her menu. The girl had some brains. Not that she’d live long enough to get any real use out of them, Midgardian lifespans being what they were.

And of course, mortals had such a lamentable tendency toward accidents.

“So, you’ve, um, been using...magic...your whole life? Is there a school for that?” Again, Jane’s voice was maddening in its hesitancy. Amazing she’d scraped together the nerve to ask at all.

“There was a brief period, I understand, where I was not yet old enough to crawl out of my crib,” Loki replied in her mildest voice.

“Oh. Right.” Jane took a long swallow of water.

Thor chuckled. “Nay, Jane. Mother would not teach Loki any magic at all until she could read and write and calculate. But Loki is most clever and wise, and she learned all of those much faster than I did.”

“My brother is too kind. I recall that he learned very quickly to read about Bor and his great victories and about large monsters, and that no one ever had to teach him to count men or the number of twinings of a cord about a sword’s hilt. It was only the more esoteric applications that eluded him.” _Little things like poetry, grammar, gardening, herbalism, basic geometry and how not to set his hair on fire._ Loki smiled. “But I had some small advantages in subtlety and craft, yes.”

Jane nodded. “Your mother taught you? Is magic like an apprenticeship sort of thing, or...” She shrugged. “Everything I’ve done has been through school. Some more direct mentoring in grad school and post-doc, but generally I learned everything in a big group. I’m just curious.”

“Well, if you are curious,” Loki said, her smile most pleasant, “I could teach you how to summon a fire giant to Midgard in but a few hours.”

Jane laughed, then caught the look on Loki’s face and stopped short.

Thor was frowning. “Loki. Do not jest about the Surtr. Did it not take you some years to learn how to summon them for questioning in safety?”

“Oh, yes.” Loki laughed guilelessly. “But that’s the binding incantations and the fireproofing and the iron wardings. The summoning itself is really very quick and simple.”

Jane’s mouth was working soundlessly.

Luckily for the human, the serving girl chose that moment to arrive, large tray laden with heavy plates of food.

“Excellent!” Thor grinned and removed the stained silverware from the paper napkin ring. “This is called a burrito, Loki. It is a kind of bread stuffed with meat, cheese, beans and other hearty fare, then smothered in the sauce of a spicy pepper. Also more cheese.”

It certainly didn’t lack for volume, Loki mused. The thing on her plate was nearly the size of Thor’s upper arm. He himself had two in front of him, which was only to be expected.

Jane had something different in front of her. There were eggs involved, and she went about eating it with dainty familiarity. Loki’s eyes narrowed, but she addressed them to her plate before either of her companions took notice.

_They have eaten together often enough that he knows what she prefers, and do not share their food. Easier to introduce poison that way, then. Or perhaps something suitably disfiguring - the only difficulty would be choosing a curse sufficiently lingering and unpleasant. Something with boils, mayhap...._

“So, that summoning thing,” Jane said, hardly a waver in her voice at all. A woman bolder on a full stomach. Obviously it would be best not to feed her. “Can anyone learn how to do that? Or other magic?”

She looked skeptical, but interested. Hopeful. “Oh yes,” Loki told her. “Anyone could learn the rites. And the power needed would be but trifling.” _For one of us, of course. For you, it might leave you a wizened crone or a blackened corpse. Or you might have some trace of our blood from long ago and actually be able to call up the beast, which would most pleasantly rend you into tiny burning pieces one exquisitely agonizing cut at a time._ “A woman of your obvious intelligence would make a very easy student.”

“I don’t want to summon a demon,” Jane said quickly. “But...something else? You could teach me, I don’t know, how to turn the car on without a key? Or tell me more about the anomaly that brought Thor? There’s so much I want to know. It would change the world.” Now she was eager, eyes flashing, trained almost entirely on Loki with a pathetic, almost religious awe.

Thor, on the other hand, was staring at Jane with barely-contained affection. It made Loki want very badly to be ill.

So, of course, she smiled. “There are a great many things I could teach you, daughter of Midgard,” she said in her most gracious and generous voice - the one that had convinced fools of all descriptions for countless years that she was most worthy of their trust. “I have no doubt that we could change your world a great deal.”

Which, in a manner of speaking, was entirely true.

“How long are you staying, Loki? Until Thor gets his hammer back, or do you have other plans?”

“Perhaps a small while longer than that,” Loki said aloud, steepling her hands. “After all, I intend that he and Mjolnir be apart for no more than a few days longer. A week at the outside. He may wish to stay here so long as a month or two.” _If he has completely taken leave of his senses._

The girl’s face fell. Loki didn’t particularly care whether it was dashed hopes of magic lessons or the prospect of Thor leaving.

“Longer than that, I think,” Thor said, smiling at Jane. The girl positively beamed under his favor. “Besides, Loki, Mother forbade us return for a year and a day.”

“Ah.” Loki did not set her teeth, nor clench her hands, nor strike the table, nor reach across it and rip the girl’s quivering lungs from her chest and force them between those girlishly parted lips. “A week, a month, a year.... these things do run together in one’s mind with enough time in one’s hands. I will, of course, remain here so long as my brother chooses to.” _And not a day longer._

“I see,” Jane said, as if she could possibly understand anything about Loki or Thor. “So, the food isn’t too spicy?”

“In Muspelheim, they serve a spicy dish of burnt meat so sharp that the taste burns in your mouth for a year after you eat it,” Loki replied pleasantly. _And if you were to take a bite, child, your lungs would sear to black before it reached your belly._

The rest of the dinner was _eternal_. Thor insisted on ordering pouches of fried dough eaten filled with honey. It was nearly impossible to be dignified while eating one, but Loki managed. She had to employ several minor illusions to do so, but the satisfaction of watching Jane dribble honey on herself while she sat pristine was well worth the effort.

Thor, of course, seemed to find the little mortal tart making a mess of herself to be attractive. Not that she would ever have accused her brother of an excess of taste, but still.

However soon they recovered Mjolnir, it would not be soon enough.

* * *

 

> **Asgard, After Loki Learned Magic and Before Thor Learned Poetry**
> 
> A vast field of stars wheeled above the golden domes and spires of Asgard, reflected dimly in the shining surfaces and in the lamps burning here and there. Thor gazed upon it from the terrace of his private chambers. After a long hunt and the raucous feasting afterwards, he needed the quiet beauty and cool night air to settle his blood.
> 
> To his left, the dry hum of a dragonfly’s wings caught his attention. While not uncommon in Asgard, early winter was not their season, and so Thor looked for signs of magic. It seemed real enough until it flew into the solid stone of the outer wall and back out again.
> 
> The carapace was a deep emerald.  One of Loki’s messengers. It darted around him twice, then back into the palace. As he strode towards his sister’s chambers, it followed him as would a hound.
> 
> She kept her apartments in the highest part of the palace, the highest point in the city. Though she rarely used them while waking, she did sleep there more often than not. The dragonfly did not protest when Thor took the high path.
> 
> From Loki’s chambers, the stars filled even more of the view. Asgard looked small and distant below. The dark silhouette of the sorceress stood before her fire, outlined in dancing shadows and shifting light. She was staring into the flames.
> 
> “Loki,” Thor said, striding to her side. They were near enough to the fire that the heat of it dried his eyes and began to parch his skin. Gently, he took one of her fine-boned hands in his. Her skin was hot in front, chill behind. “How long have you been standing there? Come away,” he urged.
> 
> As he had many times, Thor sat on his sister’s bed, pulling her carefully down to sit beside him. The furs atop her mattress he held loosely behind her, and after a moment she stirred and wrapped a hand in one of them to pull it about her. “Thor,” she whispered, eyes fever bright and voice a raw whisper, “I have had such dreams....”
> 
> “Visions?” he asked, stroking her hair, one great arm still encircling her.
> 
> “Jotunheim... Laufey has a new favorite whose eyes are like ink and whose lips are colder than the stones... a vast black void between the stars and bright armored warriors with white wings... a young buck plots to murder Surtur in his sleep, not knowing he is already betrayed....” She was shivering now as her body remembered itself, the heat of her face buried against the curve of his neck as she clutched the furs tighter about them. “I knew you would come. You always come.”
> 
> “And I always shall,” he assured her. “Though I fear that one day I will come to find your spirit walking elsewhere, gone to look at all the realms and beyond.”
> 
> “And leave you all to look after yourselves? Asgard would fall,” she scoffed in that rasping whisper, her lips touching his cheek. “Water, my warrior. I am fair parched.”
> 
> He smiled softly as he rose. “We are not so helpless as that, my Lady.” The table of jet held a crystal pitcher full of frigid water. Thor poured it into the goblet beside it, and carried it back to the bed. “You have seen much today. Have you forgone food as well as drink?”
> 
> “Aye, but water first. If I have aught to eat now, my belly will rebel against me.” She took the goblet carefully in her hands and sipped from it, her eyes cool and fathomless now, and her cracked lips parted in a slow smile. “Perhaps Asgard might be well, at that, with a warrior so mighty to look after her. But you will pardon me for not encouraging you to chase such glories without me to keep an eye about you.”
> 
> “Of course,” Thor smiled, settling back down beside his sister. “An eye about me, and the realm, and Baldur.”
> 
> She laughed softly, a heat in her cheeks as she set aside the goblet, and touched her fingertips above her heart. “And Asgard calls me sharp of tongue. Lay down, my sunlight boy - my strength is fled, and I would not look up at you from so great a distance. ‘Tis poor for the eyes.”
> 
> Doffing his boots and overtunic, Thor climbed into Loki’s bed, solid warmth curling around her slender form. “Is that better, my Lady?” he asked, mirth in his eyes. “Now, tell me of Baldur the Beautiful. You never seem to favor the same kind of man, and I am at a loss for finding you a husband.”
> 
> “Baldur, a husband?” She shuddered and buried her face against his neck as if to ward off the sight. “Let the Norns spare me that! I’ll not deny that he’s fair enough to turn my head, but no more than that. What proof of courage can a man give when naught will touch him with malice? No, my warrior, he would suit me ill and I suit him worse. But I’d not deny him a night’s mischief, no, if he’d have me.”
> 
> Thor huffed in consternation, shifting so that Loki could lay her head on his broad chest, one arm cradling her to him and the other hand stroking her wrist. “Then we are back to the question of what would suit you, sister.”
> 
> “Mmm.” A low, whispery laugh trailed over his collar. “Tall. Strong. Brave, of course. A mighty warrior - I’d never lower myself to less - and willing to undertake the most unlikely tasks. The sort of man who could dare the impossible and succeed. Not too concerned with household matters, either - I’d be quite beside myself if my husband tried to muck about in my running of his home - and appreciative of my quality. Broad hands, a good chin, not too stout or too dainty. Above all a man, not some boy I could dress in my gowns and make my lady’s maid.”
> 
> “I see,” Thor chuckled. “Are you sure there is nothing else? Why, I could find a man to fit that bill in a mere handful of centuries.”
> 
> “I shall await your efforts most patiently, my darling,” she told him without lifting her head from his chest, sighing in contentment. “And you? What wife shall I fetch the future King of Asgard and bring back to him wrapped in bridal halter?”
> 
> A stout finger poked Loki’s ribs gently. “We speak of my wife, not a horse,” he laughed.
> 
> “So long as they both provide good riding, what pray tell is the difference?”
> 
> “You are terrible,” he scolded, still laughing. “I would have a lady of elegance, wit, and wisdom. She would be learned in matters small and large and so be a companion of my rule, not just the mother of my heirs. A strong will. Beautiful, of course.”
> 
> “Oh, of course.”
> 
> “And so I too shall be unwed centuries hence, unless you think you can find me such a lady?”
> 
> Loki laughed and shifted as though to touch the lacing of her gown. “Oh, I’m sure I had one tucked away somewhere. In my underthings, perhaps, or under the bed.”
> 
> His chuckle rumbling through both of them, Thor placed a kiss on Loki’s forehead. “Probably in your library. You are forever leaving things there. Now sleep, Loki, and dream no more this night.”
> 
> “Stay with me,” she whispered, twining his hair about her fingers as she closed her eyes. “My sleep is only dreamless when you stay near.”
> 
> “Very well. But you may blame only yourself if my snoring keeps you awake.”
> 
> Loki, a smile on her lips, was already asleep.

* * *

_If I open this trailer door, what are the chances that I’ll find my brother and the human girl rutting?_ Loki rested her fingertips against the cheap metal, cursing her own hesitation - weakness - until finally she could bring herself to go through with it.

“I say it was the Colonel of Mustard, in the Dining Hall, with the mighty wrench!” Thor declared loudly. He was wedged into one tiny seat at the flat surface laughingly called a table, Jane across from him and the servant girl sitting to one side on top of a storage box of some kind.

Jane did a poor job of holding back a smile. “Oh, really? Because I have the wrench right here.” She held up a card.

Thor plucked the card from Jane’s hand and inspected it. “Curses! It seems I was fooled. Well played, Lady Jane.”

The look of childish delight passing between Thor and the mortal made Loki want to be sick. Or see her slowly flayed. Perhaps the latter might ward off the former, if briskly begun....

“Oh, hi, Loki,” Jane’s attendant said loudly, and not for Loki’s benefit. “How’s it going?”

“Sister!” Thor grinned, made a broad gesture that would likely have plastered Darcy against the other side of the trailer if she hadn’t ducked in time. The image made Loki smile. “Fare you well this night?”

“Well but busy,” she said in the most normal voice of which she was, for the moment, capable. It ought not to have fooled a small child, but it seemed to pass inspection with the Midgardians and her brother. There were advantages to working with a credulous audience. “There is one more matter of some import I wish to attend to before I sleep, but I will need your assistance. If I might take you from this boisterous gathering of brave investigating companions?”

Jane was too distracted making eyes at Thor, but the servant girl, at least, frowned at Loki’s words.

“Of course,” Thor agreed instantly. He managed not to damage any of the furniture (or, unfortunately, the mortals) as he rose and exited the trailer, but it was a near thing.

“Good night, Lady Jane, friend Darcy,” Thor said. “Rest well.”

“You too, Thor,” Jane said, voice wistful. Loki visualized cutting the girl’s tongue from her mouth. It was sufficient to get her out of the trailer and back into the welcoming night without obvious displeasure, but that didn’t mean that the quarter-mile walk to her tent was anything but completely unbearable. Her br - but no, he was not - her Thor was intolerably cheerful, as if he had competed in some great challenge and enjoyed the favor of a great lady instead of moving tiny pieces of cheap plastic and metal about a paper board in the company of a serving girl and a strumpet unworthy of the touch of his hand.

She set her teeth and drew back the flap of her tent; that, at least, was gold and emerald and finely made, set with enchantment as befitted Asgardian royalty and not a cheap mass-produced paen to tastelessness destined never-sufficiently-soon for the rustheap.

While she was using it, anyway.

“Marvellous!” Thor smiled as he stood his full height and surveyed the interior of a pavillion such as he himself had used in wartime. “Your enchantments are most skilled, Loki. Now, what do you need me to do?”

She took a breath to steel her nerves, because what she was about to attempt was not much in her nature. To yield nothing, to know all and speak little,  to conceal truth like a dagger in the hand - that was what her foster mother had taught her, and she had learned the lesson surpassingly well. It frightened her as nothing she could recall had since she was a child.

But as a child, she had not understood the importance of precautions.

“I mean to reveal things unseen and unspoken,” she explained in patient, gracious tones, “so that we may better be restored to the state for which we are made. The process may be somewhat disorienting to you, and I would not have you - or myself - injured in the process. Therefore, for safety, I wish to bind you before we begin. With your assent?”

“‘Tis a summoning?” he asked, a furrow of concern in his brow. “I would not leave you undefended against some foul creature.”

“Nay, ‘twill be but you and I here. Say rather a divination, but one most taxing to endure.” She reached up and stroked her fingertips over his face, softening her voice to reassure him as she might a wary beast. “Do not fear, my brother. I will be safe - I will not allow myself to be otherwise. That, I promise you.”

The worry melted from his face and he nodded. “Very well.”

She bade him stand in the center of the pavillion, facing the bed piled with sumptuous silks and furs, and when he complied she took up the coil of dark rope which she had prepared for the purpose and tied it soundly about his limbs - wrists, elbows, knees, boots. A word sufficed to adhere each end to the unyielding frame of her tent, and then it was done. For a moment or two, she allowed herself a thrill of satisfaction to see the mighty Thor bound before her and at her mercy, but the cold spikes of fear in her belly would not permit a lingering enjoyment. Not yet, at least.

“Wait here,” she whispered, touching his cheek once more, and then passed across the bearskin rug to the great wrought iron box in which she kept all her tools of magic (well, not all, but that was merely prudent precaution). From it she took a smaller box of dark Muspelheim steel, its surface still glowing faintly in places with the heat of its forging, and she bore it back to her brother with a swift, determined step. “Before he passed into Odinsleep, the Allfather passed a great secret to me - one I had come to suspect when we walked upon Jotunheim together. Now I must share it with you. Are you prepared, Thor Odinson?”

Flexing his muscles as if readying himself for a blow, he nodded, blue eyes looking into hers with a certainty stronger than his bonds. “I am prepared.” It hurt to see him so sure, so strong and beautiful, and know that what she must say would wound him to the heart.

 _Sooner started, sooner done,_ Frigga had told her all her life. She opened the box, exposing the fragment of Jotunheim crystal inside, and the air chilled just at its presence. “I am not Odin’s daughter,” she told him, putting her whole being behind the words and driving into them as she would a finishing thrust with a dagger, “but daughter of Laufey of Jotunheim. My blood is not your blood, Thor, and never has been. Odin and Frigga knew, but said nothing. This is the truth I know, and now I will show you.”

Her hand wrapped around the crystal and she let the box fall away, every inch of her humming with the icy glow that was but an echo of what she had felt when she laid her hand on the Cask of Winters, and it was everything that she could do not to look away from him. Not to hide her face from him or take her eyes from his.

For it was his gaze that pained her, not the frozen sliver of eternal ice in her hand.

He jerked back in surprise as far as the rope would allow, eyes darting over Loki’s face, her hand, the crystal, and back again. “What?! Madness!” he cried, body trying to assume a fighting stance. She didn’t move, and after a moment he stopped struggling, confusion replacing the shock and fear. Then, in his eyes, a dawning belief - horror - his gaze boring into her, taking in her transformed skin even as the plummeting temperature turned his breath to clouds and rimed his golden face with frost.

“Tell me a secret,” he demanded. “Something only I and Loki would know.”

“Dear Thor,” she whispered, her own breath invisible in the air as she drew near her and looked into his eyes, “how innocent you are sometimes. Surely you must know that such secrets are the jewels that every thief would wish to snatch if they could? But I will humor you with a trifle - something many could have known but none would mark - because those are the best secrets. The chain which I gave you to woo Signe was woven gold, with a clasp cunningly formed to a raven’s shape, and its eyes were fine rubies too small for a jeweler's tongs.”

At that the fight left him, his weight shifting forwards and only confusion and unhappiness remaining on his face. “Loki...”

Her name hung in the air between them for a long moment. Whatever words he was looking for, he didn’t find them.

“You were right to bind me,” he said finally, casting his eyes to the floor. “I am sorry.”

“It was not you who did this,” she whispered, finally taking up the small box and returning the crystal to it, and she returned with both to the great iron chest and sealed it closed over them. The blue had faded from her hands by the time she turned back to him, leaving the surface of things as they had been before, and she crossed the tent to him and embraced him fiercely as if to press the returning warmth of her body into his skin. “It was Odin and it was Frigga. Not you.”

“Your anger is justified, Loki, but do not hate them for it. They love you, blood or no,” he beseeched, pressing his cheek to her hair. “As do I.”

“As I love and have always loved you,” she whispered, and turned his face to hers, and kissed him.

His noise of surprised protest buried in both their mouths, Thor rocked back again, but she followed, and he turned his face aside to pull away. “Loki! What are you doing?”

“I would think that would be obvious,” she murmured, drawing back but leaving her arms wrapped about him. It was a shock, of course. He needed a moment. She understood completely.

Eyes wide and expression teetering between shocked and outraged, Thor shook his head. “We were children together, Loki. In my heart you are my sister, not...” he trailed off, unwilling to speak plainly for perhaps the first time in his long life. “Release me.”

“Not?” Her voice cracked, and something frozen and sharp jutted up out of her heart to leave her bleeding. Gasping. Shaking for thin Midgard air. “Not brave, not loyal, not certain of your interests? Not fair enough for you, my glorious warrior whose conquests have scaled the height and width of Asgard in dew-eyed maidens? Not fit for the bed to which I have helped so many, and from which I have seen to it that they passed without complaint or inconvenience to you? Not worthy of the attention you show some Midgardian slut?” She was screaming now and could not seem to stop. “What is it that I am not? Say rather that it is what I am - Loki, Laufey’s daughter!”

“I care not!” he roared back. “Asgardian, elf, human, Jotun, it changes not who you are, or that you are a sorceress and a schemer and, yes, my sister. I will not think of you as my lover!” Chest working like a bellows, he was straining against the ropes again. “Now, release me!”

She stumbled back from him, hands trembling, and chill tears lingered on her face before she could steady herself to wipe them away. At last she turned to do as he bid her, her fingertip tracing the rope to the wall, but then she paused in the shadows - for in the light of her lamps, there were many - and spoke as much to herself as to him. “Aye, I ought to release you. ‘Twould be right and proper, for my truth-telling is done, and those were our terms. But perhaps not all the truth is told? There’s a thought with an edge to it. For though you say that you know what I am, has Thor Odinson ever truly looked on me with eyes that know my parentage? As the prism changes the passage of the light, would not this knowledge change the view?” Her hand fell away from the rope as her mind turned to the puzzle, and she walked to the pit where the coals would glow forever (or until she bid them stop) to lay fresh wood on the fire. “Perhaps what we say is not the best measure of truth, after all. Words are but breath, wisps of nothing caught in the air like smoke - here now, gone in a moment. What weight ought we give them? Oh, but little.”

“Loki,” Thor said sharply. “I speak true. I have been wrong many times but never have lied to you.”

When she turned to meet his eyes, much of his anger had been replaced by foreboding. He did know her best. Well, that was only just. “A test,” she decided aloud. “A game, my warrior who is not my brother. Surely that is not too cruel? You say that you see me as your sister and naught more, and so we will see.” She let her jacket fall from her shoulders and stepped from her heels, then set quick fingers to the buttons of her waistcoat and blouse. Not as quick as laces, but speed was not the only measure of use in such matters, and she took care with each one. Not care for their threading, of course, but care of another sort....

“Loki.” Thor’s voice wavered. “Stop this.” He visibly wrenched his gaze away from her fingers. “Please.”

“Not yet.” Her own voice was soft, breathless with excitement. With anticipation, yes, but also all the unspoken longings of a life. Things which she had thought foul and hidden away now took a different aspect - as truth often did, she reminded herself. As it might for Thor. She cast off the cloth of Midgard (well, most of it - Midgard had developed some fascinating ideas about undergarments in the past millenium) and stood before him, tracing slow fingers over the pale curves of her skin, and let herself think fully of what it would be to take him to her bed and keep him there. To feel his hands in her hair or rough on her skin, to draw him against her until the very world trembled under them....

Her breath caught. Hitched. Escaped in a sigh.

Thor himself drew in a harsh breath, pupils already dilating, and shut his eyes tightly. “If I were free I would have left by now, Loki. Is that not test enough?”

“For a man who claims he can only see me as his sister,” Loki whispered, scraping her nails across her skin and half-burying her sound of excitement (for effect of course), “you seem to be spending a lot of effort on not looking at me.”

Reliable as the sun, Thor opened his eyes to glare at her. The man couldn’t resist a challenge, even when he was obviously outmatched. Perhaps especially then.

“Satisfied?” he growled. The muscles in his shoulders and neck were trembling, perhaps with the effort he was exerting to keep his eyes locked on hers. “I am done with your game. Now let me go or harm my goodwill towards you.”

She laughed and stretched a hand up to the headboard of her bed, her fingertips languidly at work between her thighs and her hair quite artfully spread. “Somehow, I don’t think you’ve gotten the full view. If you can actually look at me and still tell me true that you do not want me, I’ll let you go. That’s only fair.”

In a valiant effort, Thor slid his gaze over her body quickly, then back to her face, his lust-darkened eyes holding hers. Only for a moment, though, before his eyes fell as though pulled by gravity and he looked again at her bare skin, her breasts, her hand and her sex.  

Loki found the growing bulge in his jeans most satisfactory, but not as much as the helpless want on his face.

“Now,” she said, her breath trembling through her teeth as she forced her fingers more deeply into herself and watched him aching for her, “I believe we were discussing release.” Her eyes snapped closed and her whole body shook - because really, when you had eternity to practice, orgasm on cue wasn’t difficult at all - and she listened to his breathing and the sound of him trying to make words that actually had syllables in them.

Predictably, he wasn’t as successful as he probably meant to be.

“You...I...Loki...” he said. Swallowed, still unable to look away from her, leaning slightly forward in his bonds now. The fabric of his borrowed trousers was stretched tightly across his manhood. That had to be uncomfortable.

“I am being terribly selfish, aren’t I? And rude.” Shaking off the languid afterglow, she unwound herself from the bed and glided over until she was almost close enough to kiss him. Almost. She wanted to, of course, but patience was important. Even if it wasn’t her strongest suit. “After all, it’s rude to partake in front of someone without offering them a place at the table. Now, please pardon me, but this is going to require me to stop talking for a little while. You understand. Don’t go anywhere.”

A look of mingled panic, desire and outrage flashed across his face. “Not a situation you can’t bring insolence to, is there,” he remarked, then groaned as she loosed his belt and popped the curious Midgard fastenings on his jeans so she could run her hand over him. And oh, that left her breathless. She actually had to lean against his shoulder for a moment before she could nerve herself to look, because just the feel of him against her fingers was....

It wasn’t that she’d never seen him unclad before. Or even aroused and with a woman, if she was being strictly honest. But it was the difference between seeing the fire of Muspelheim and feeling it, between catching the scent of a feast and actually eating it, and it made her weak-kneed just to hold the heft of him in her hand.

Fortunately, her knees weren’t going to be required to be particularly sturdy for what she had in mind.

His face was buried in her hair, and she felt the heat of his breath against her throat. “Loki,” he said in a ragged half-moan. “You torture me.”

That was nearly begging, and she would never force the man she had loved all her life to beg. She kissed his face and sank to her knees at once. This close Thor’s musk drove her arousal yet higher, and she only spared a moment to enjoy the view before taking the hot weight of his cock into her mouth. She pulled all of him into her throat, shuddering with her greed, and her sex beginning to ache again almost in envy of her tongue.

“Hel’s eyes,” he cursed, hips pushing forward, and she gripped his thigh to steady herself so she could better accommodate him. She bent all she knew of this particular art to the task of pleasing him, because she wanted - burned, down in her very bones - to serve him better than any woman ever had. To ensure that when he thought of this act, it was her before him that he would think of.

A woman had to have her goals, after all.

Soon Thor was moaning a constant string of curses and vowel sounds, nearly hanging from the ropes, so desperate he was for contact. It was then, only then, that she forced herself to slide off of his manhood, stand on shaky legs, and loose the ropes from him with a word that probably ought not be gasped. Fortunately, the magic didn’t catch fire or do anything else inconvenient (not that she would have cared overmuch if it did at this particular moment, so long as it didn’t interfere).

Shaking the coils from his limbs, Thor plucked her from the floor and laid her on the bed in one swift motion, burying his length in her sex almost before she knew she’d been moved. Rough hands gripped her hips tightly as he thrust into her, and the longest, loudest moan Loki had ever heard rumbled through his chest and into the place where his teeth were sunk into her shoulder. It was glorious and perfect and exactly, exactly what she’d wanted since before she understood what it was to want a man. Or a woman, for that matter, but that was another story.

The heavy pounding of his cock crushed the greater part of her thoughts to powder - a novel sensation that she was fairly certain she was never going to want to do without after this - and left her with the visceral, animal pleasure of being claimed so fiercely. That and the wild, smug, incandescent joy of finally, finally having Thor to herself.  She answered his strength with hers, his fathomless desire with her ecstatic acceptance, his groans with profane encouragement, and the bruises he was leaving on her skin with a truly exquisite set of scratch marks. A couple of them, she flattered herself, might even scar.

With a final series of quick, deep thrusts, Thor poured his seed into her with a wordless shout against her skin, crushing her hips to his and bearing her down into the mattress with his weight. The frame of the bed - as finely crafted as any on Midgard - cracked like a thunderclap, and she buried her face against his neck to muffle a scream scarcely less violent. Glorious victory in battle could rot by the side of the road - this was what triumph was.

They lay panting in the ruins of the bed for a few minutes, listening to the other’s breathing slow, feeling the texture of each other’s skin. All too soon, Thor stirred, pulled himself from her, began to stand. She ran her hand across his shoulder, let him, offered him her most delighted smile. “Water, my lord?”

Had he raged or argued his denial, she could have countered it. But he simply looked at her with quiet hurt in his eyes as he fastened his jeans.

“I trusted you.”

For the first time in her long life, Loki silver-tongued could find nothing to say. She only reached out to him, hand trembling, pleading with her eyes. It was all she could do.

Thor hesitated, looked away and left the tent, the night wind spilling through in his wake. It chilled her bare, sweat-slicked skin, and she let it; the cold numbed, and she would have numbness now over what poured from her pierced heart.

 


	4. Chapter 4

This part of Midgard was cold at night, even in the summer. The sparse plant life and fewer clouds left the sky open most of the time, a clear clean blue by day and a sparkling vista of stars at night. Thor walked along the unpaved road leading away from Puente Antiguo, the beauty of the heavens merely a backdrop for his conflict.

 _My lord. My king. You’ll drive me mad, the way you feel in me...._ Loki’s words, gasped in his ear, lingering on him like the smell of her sweat and perfume soaked into his clothing. He shook his head to banish the memory. It didn’t work, so he ran across rock and hard-packed dirt instead. A short distance - no more than a mile - and he slowed to a walk again.

Loki. _As I have always loved you._ And lusted for him, it would seem.

Much as he wished it otherwise, it was clear that he returned her feelings, affection and animal passion alike. Had it always been thus? Had they simply buried their desire when they’d believed themselves to be blood? Were all those nights of shared beds not the innocent comfort they’d thought?

The way his body remembered hers clutched about him was anything but innocent now.

A soft breeze brought his own dust around him, getting into his mouth and eyes and clothes. He snorted wryly. _Mother always did say I made more problems for myself than I solved._

Like the beatings he’d doled out for the crime of offending Loki or slighting her honor. The rage he’d felt, was that the rage of lust as well as brotherly protectiveness? He did not know. Loki had been his only sibling.

 _You needn’t trouble yourself, brother,_ her voice whispered beside him. _I shall always be with you._ Not tonight, but long ago - not once, but dozens of times. Perhaps hundreds. Always the same promise, the same certainty. The same biting disinterest in any sincere suitor.

He wanted to leave the road, strike out across the open desert, be free of the path leading him to a certain destination. But his body was weak, now, and while the mighty God of Thunder would have scoffed at such trifles as spined plants and poison serpents, Thor the Unworthy could be harmed by them. Probably not fatally, of course, but he’d had enough of Midgardian medical care.

The long gouges on his back still stung. He would tend them himself, or not at all. If she were to see them, how could he explain them to Jane? Jane, who did not know of Loki’s parentage or her history with Thor. Jane, kind as she was clever. Who did not hold his heart as strongly as the sorceress, but with more lightness and joy.

He stopped in his tracks. Remembered how none of the women he’d stopped seeing had ever spoken to him again. Which was unusual, if the experiences of Hogun, Volstagg and Fandral were typical.

Loki must have scared them into silence. Some had even suffered accidents shortly after he’d lost interest. Fates, how had he not seen it?

And what must he do to protect Jane now? He was no match for Loki’s cunning, that he knew. But if he could make sure it was contest of might, he would win.

He turned around and began running back to town. By the time he came into sight of the hill where Jane loved to stargaze, where they’d lain a long night while he drew a map of the Nine Realms for her, even he was breathless and gasping with exertion. His shirt clung to him, soaked with fresh sweat, and the dust smeared his face and arms.

Jane Foster, hands full of logbook and eye pressed to the sight of her telescope, jolted upright to stare at him. “Jesus,” she shouted, then visibly tried to smother her voice. “What happened to you? You look like you lost a fight with a cougar. You didn’t, right?”

“Nay,” he said, relieved that she was still well. Assuming it was her and not Loki in disguise. Which it probably wasn’t. He thought.

“Loki and I...quarreled. I ran to regain my thoughts.”

“Next time you regain your thoughts, maybe pick something a little less filthy?” Jane looked him over skeptically, then cleared her throat and looked very awkwardly at her shoes instead. “She... ah... scratched your face. I think. It must have been some fight.”

Starting, he brought his hand up and found on his cheek sticky blood mixed with the dirt. “Oh. Yes. It was.”

“We should get some antiseptic on that.” She closed the book, standing up to take his hand, and in spite of several very reasonable arguments why he ought to do nothing of the kind, he let her lead him down toward her trailer. “What’d you two fight about, anyway? Family stuff?”

He nodded. “That and...Jane.” Stopping just outside the door, he laid a hand on her shoulder. “Loki does not approve of my association with Midgardians. I fear she will be a danger to you.”

“Me?” She stared at him for a few seconds, then frowned. “Not Darcy or Doctor Selvig. Me. When you say ‘association,’ you mean...?”

Removing his hand from her - too aware of her fragility, the differences between her body and Loki’s - he gave her a sad smile. “She sees my care for you, Lady Jane. She has read my heart always.” The words hurt to hear himself say, but he would not let that stop him. She needed to understand.

Just not to understand his other truth.

“Around here,” Jane said, pulling the door of the trailer open, “disapproving relatives don’t usually hunt down the offending girlfriend. Boyfriend. Whichever.”

“It is not uncommon in Asgardia,” Thor admitted, embarrassed by his homeland for the first time.

Jane raised both eyebrows. “Nice place you come from.”

“I am sorry,” he said sincerely, not following her in. “I do not know whether my leaving or staying would be better protection for you.” _Or how long I can hide my secret from you if I do stay._

“I don’t want you to leave.” She grabbed his hand again and tugged him toward the door. “And if you are going to do some stupid ‘for your own protection’ leaving thing, you’re not doing it without antiseptic. Not happening.”

Thor found himself sitting on the bed in the trailer, Jane dabbing at his face with stinging medicine.  That much was straightforward. But then she stood up and demanded his clothes - “Completely filthy, I’m at least going to wash them” - and that presented new problems.

After a moment, Thor hedged. “If you will loan me another set, I can begin washing them when I bathe,” he said, “and I will give them to you after I am clean.”

“Oh. Right. That would work, too.” Jane backed up against one of the walls of the trailer and pointed to the bathroom. “Get to it.”

It was a tight fit, but he was not inclined to object under the circumstances - it would let him keep his back away from her, for one thing. Still, it did require squeezing past her without causing her undue discomfort and that required a proximity which was slightly distracting. It would likely have been more so were his desires not already well-quenched for the evening, and that was a thought he would have prefered not to have while spare inches from Jane Foster’s body.

The door swung open, and Jane turned - trapping herself up against him in the process - to yell “Little busy, Darcy!”

A brown leather glove wrapped around the safety rail, and the dull electric light from the bed glittered from emeralds and silver as Loki - arrayed as befitted a princess of Asgard - stepped up into the narrow entrance well beside the sink and stove. Her eyes took in the whole of the trailer - Thor, his face washed and scratches tended, still wearing his battered clothing, one arm braced against the wall while Jane, her own garments kissed with dust - and narrowed to jade-gilt slits, but her lips curved in a smile which under other circumstances he might have been prepared to believe was pleasant.

“So I see,” she said.

“Loki,” Thor said, both anger and pleading in his voice. As gently as he could, he moved Jane to the side so he could stand between the two women. He opened his mouth to continue, but realized that there was no point. It had been more or less what it looked like, after all - Thor and Jane alone together, having confessed tender feelings and laid hands on one another. He knew it would not matter to Loki that they had not lain together.

She let the silence stretch out, let the door close behind her, stepped fully up into the kitchen. Held up one hand as if balancing it - or perhaps inviting him to continue - and plucked one of the kitchen knives from the sink to twirl about her fingers as if it were some minor bauble. “Look,” Jane started to say, and Loki almost casually tossed the knife against the magnetic rack. The words stopped.

“Yes?” Loki lounged back against the counter, her skirts brushing the linoleum flooring, and arched a languid eyebrow. “I believe someone was about to lie to me. I’m not sure it matters which of you, but would you like a moment alone to get your stories straight? That can be so helpful.”

“Did Brenna lose her position because of you?” Thor asked. “Or Eydis her leg?”

“Oh, come now. Eydis didn’t _lose_ her leg - only most of the use of it. I did a marvelous job setting the bones.” Loki brought her hand to her bosom, and her expression turned mistily sentimental. “Why, she might have died without my help.”

The now-familiar queasiness of guilt gripped Thor’s stomach. “And all the other misfortunes to befall my other old lovers? Your doing?”

“I could hardly have arranged _all_ of those misfortunes, even had I wished to.” She discarded one manner and took another as swift as a breath - this one cool, reserved, haughtily unmoved. “Which, of course, I would never lower myself to do.”

“I thought that once,” Thor said. “But now I no longer believe it. I am blind to your fangs no longer, Loki.”

The counter cracked audible under her fingers, and she straightened to her full height in a slow, painful motion that reminded him a warrior he had once seen on a battlefield - trying to rise in spite of a spear shattered in his guts. “So is it a serpent you would have me be?” she whispered, every word sharp and jagged as if she were cutting and edging them as she spoke. “Would that make it easier for you? But if I am, Odinson, I have been your serpent all these years. Did you never wonder at how many of your enemies brought themselves blindly within reach of your hammer, or how little your conquests troubled you when you were finished with them? How no intrigue ever touched you, no desire you held went long unfulfilled? Even when you knew it was my work, you never asked me how I did it. You never wanted to know what it cost. When you wanted a war with Jotunheim, you never wondered how they came to find their way into Asgard on your very coronation day.”

Her words hit him like blows, and he put a hand on the wall to keep himself steady. “You let them in? To bring me a war?” His own voice sounded strange in his ears, crushed like it hadn’t been for centuries.

“I brought Byleist Laufeyson to the hour of his death, and all his companions with him. I told them the ways past Heimdall’s gaze so that you could end their days.” Her emerald eyes were so bright and so fierce that they seemed to be afire. “So that you could teach the jotuns to fear you as they did the Allfather and bring glory to your name. That was what you wanted, wasn’t it? All you talked about before the coronation, but he wouldn’t hear of it. I gave you the excuse you wanted, the same way I gave you the words to take Eydis to your bed and away from Aleifr’s, who would have taken her to wife. The way I brought you your hammer again when Thrymr had stolen it and asked a woman in return.”

They piled upon him, her litany of wrongs, heavy and bitter in their cold truth. He wasn’t sure which was more damning - that she had known all along exactly what she’d done for him, and what he’d done with her help, or that he hadn’t.

“Does that disturb you, ‘Lady Jane’?” Loki’s voice mounted again, as if she were a windstorm about to break upon land or a scream trying to be voiced. “Shall I tell you how many my brother has killed, how many maids left heartbroken? He cannot, but I’ve counted every one, and I could number them like the stars. Or shall I tell you what he did tonight before he came to your bed? Shall I tell you that?”

“Enough!” Thor barked, the fierce desire to keep at least one thing hidden goading him past the torpor of shame. “I am unworthy of the throne or of Mjolnir. Does it make you glad to hear me say it?”

“No.” The scream receded, the fury in Loki’s eyes fading, her voice falling to a whisper. “No. I would have seen you take the crown and the throne. I wanted you to have everything you wanted.” Now, at last, she looked away. “Only that, and your love.”

He took a step towards her that before would have ended in an embrace. “And to that end you break my trust? Threaten mortal lives? Your ways are never plain, but your actions tonight run against your wishes, not for them.”

“Then forgive me. Have I not done enough to warrant that?” She tried to close the distance between them, tried to wrap her arms about him and tuck her head beneath his. But Thor laid a broad hand on her shoulder and held her at a small distance.

“When I ask of your plans, will you tell me true?” He searched her face, hoping to see what was real instead of his own thoughts. “Will you stop if I ask it of you?”

“I have always been willing to do as you wished,” she murmured, fingertips tracing the inside of his wrist as her hand slid down over his.

The pre-battle tension that had coiled in his body began to dissipate. “Then, yes, I forgive you, Loki.”

“Seriously?!” Jane spluttered from behind him. A jolt of fire roused Thor’s fighting blood again, even higher than before as he turned to look at her. She was braced between the two front seats, waving her arms in agitation, expression outraged. “She just told you she’s been your secret legbreaker all these years, and that’s okay? On top of whatever it was she did to you tonight? Not to mention, I might add, twirling a knife around and glaring like she’s planning where to stab me first.”

“Speak when you’re spoken to,” Loki hissed, her hands against his shoulders and pressing fiercely enough to make the scratches she’d left on his back ache, “and not before. This doesn’t concern you, girl.”

Mouth and eyes wide open, Jane looked at Thor in open disbelief. “Seriously.”

“Jane,” he said, “I am sorry you feared for your safety. I will not let you come to harm.” He ignored a small snort of a laugh from Loki. “The rest is guilt I share or mine to forgive.”

“You -” Pain clear in her eyes, Jane steeled herself and turned away. “Okay, fine. It doesn’t concern me. Get out of my trailer. Both of you. I’ll protect myself.”

Small words, and delivered without the towering rage or boiling contempt of a millennia-old Asgardian, but they cut Thor nonetheless. Loki’s hand brushed his, drawing him back a step toward leaving. Toward walking out a door that might not open again.

It would be no more than he deserved if it didn’t.

“Fare you well, Jane,” he finally told her. “I am sorry.”

She didn’t look at him, but he could see her reflection in the windshield and the tears in her eyes. Loki drew him back another step. The door clicked open.

They went out together, hands joined.

The darkness of the desert resonated with the turmoil in Thor’s chest. He was glad to have Loki by his side, even now - they had been too long companions for him to wish her gone for any significant length of time. Yet the farther he walked from Jane, the sharper the ache in his chest became.

“My lord.” Loki stopped him with a touch, drew his face down to look at her, smiled. Traced his brow. “Don’t fret so. Wherever we go, I would see you smile.”

Then she leaned up to kiss him.

His blood stirred in desire - he could no longer deny that - but he stepped back, holding her away from him. “Loki. Please.” His pierced heart was plain in his voice, he was sure of that. She must hear it clear as her own incantations. “I need time.”

She bowed her head and gently eased his fingers from her shoulders, nudging her way up under his chin and settling there. “Of course. We have an abundance.”

Letting his arms wrap around her, Thor looked out at the starlit desert. He wanted, more than anything, to reconcile the two women, though he could not see a way to have both women’s favor. Loki might tolerate Jane if he asked it of her - poisonously scornful barbs and dark glances aside - but Jane would not.

Worse, she would look down on him with contempt for accepting Loki by his side at all.

Perhaps if the two never met again, but they would still share a world and even a small area of land without Heimdall and the Bifrost. He had seen a flying vehicle earlier, but did not know what it would take to use one. Loki could get one for him, he was sure, or make one. Then he could split his time between the mortal and the Asgardian.

Assuming Jane even agreed to it at all. Perhaps after her anger had cooled a bit, he could return and ask. Bring a gift, perhaps, a jewel or a piece of one of the other Realms. If Loki put a charm spell on it, she would be happy to see him regardless of who else was in his life.

Thor’s stomach dropped sickeningly. By all the gods--even his thoughts were unworthy. Loki did not think so, but therein lay the danger.

The whisper he pressed into her hair was ragged. “I am sorry, Loki, but I do not trust myself to ask.”

“Then do not,” she answered him, her arms tightening as if anticipating a separation even as her voice softened and deepened into a breath of temptation that no art could have refined further - not even hers. It was its very sincerity that made it pierce so deep. “Ask me all or nothing, my lord, but lead me. Take me at your side. Is that so terrible a thing?”

“As mead is to a drunkard.” Tears were not his wont, but he felt them burn behind his eyes as he pressed his lips to the shadowed silk of her dark locks. “You give me too much what I want.”

“What then should I do?” The words trembled as fiercely as the grip of her hands in the shirt Jane and Selvig had bought for him, a shirt surely not long for this world if she could not let it go. “Shall I be coy and perverse, and pretend I know not the wish of your heart? Shall I berate you for love of some idea, some _principle_ for which I care not? What would you have of me? Name it!”

He stilled her with a touch, as he always had. That made it harder. “I would-” His throat closed. His chest tightened almost too much to breathe, as if to hold back his next words. “I would have you return home without me.”

She stumbled back from him as if he had struck her some enormous blow, her pale cheeks flushed and her eyes hollowed emeralds, and her words came as if from a shattered instrument when she could bring herself to speak them. “And leave you here how long?”

Tears stung at Thor’s eyes. “Until I am strong enough to master my desires.”

“Master enough to be shut of me, you mean,” she hissed between her teeth as her hands clenched, drawing herself straight and harsh as a tower of iron before him. “Penitent enough to win mother’s approval. Perhaps only long enough for your human slut to age past being pleasing, or long enough to sit here in the dust and forget you were once a man?”

She blurred in his sight, re-formed as he blinked. “I am only now learning what it is to be a man.”

“To take your punishment? To lie in the ashes like a dog while the place that ought to be yours is taken by others? To cast away the one who loves you most?” Her voice rose again, the wind casting up grit in sympathy with her anger, and both mounted swiftly to a shriek. “If it is penance you would have, my lord, perhaps I will grant it! Let the skies freeze and the soil burn to glass, and it will be a suitable retreat for your meditations!”

He could no longer see her, scarcely breathe any longer for the sandstorm which was choking him, but even over its howl he could hear her last savage, bitter whisper. “Perhaps then you will remember what it is to have a use for me.”

* * *

 

Erik Selvig had not, truth be told, done quite as much drinking as he’d been doing lately since graduate school. Part of that he could blame on his robust new bar buddy who was either entirely mad or a Norse god (or both, which couldn’t be written out as a possibility). Part of it, if he was being really honest with himself, had something to do with coming to terms with the idea that human beings were not only theoretically but very immediately and practically not alone in the universe.

And of course, part of it was that he’d re-discovered that he rather enjoyed it. The morning-after hike back to what was left of his laboratory, less so, but at least he was keeping hydrated.

Coming up the half-path of stones laid out as steps and finding Thor the God of Thunder sitting lotus-style on one of the wood picnic tables was not completely unprecedented, admittedly, but it was the first time he’d seen him quite so impressively dusted with sand and looking very much as if someone had dragged him some distance through the stuff. If it weren’t for the fact that the ache in his skull (not helped by the gathering morning light) was assuring him persistently that he was sober, he’d have been tempted to blame the half-empty bottle he was carrying.

“Here.” He offered the booze to the big blond man who somehow still managed to look ruggedly handsome no matter how bedraggled he was. “You look like you need this more than I do.”

An odd look of combined distaste and sorrow flashed over Thor’s face, but then he smiled softly and took the bottle. “Thank you, friend. How fare you this morning?”

“Too old to be carrying on like this, I suppose, but better than you seem to be.” Selvig settled himself onto one of the benches by the table, cracked open his water bottle and took a long swallow. “The last time I made a woman mad enough to not even lend me keys for a shower, I was living in Sweden. Much less two of them.”

Thor took a drink. His chuckle was genuine for all its rawness. “How did you manage that, wise Erik?”

“A very pretty laboratory assistant. English.” He heaved a sigh at the memory. Signe had _not_ been happy with him. “We forgot to lock the door to the lab.”

Selvig liked to believe that Thor was impressed. The look on his face could be interpreted that way, anyhow.

“And how did that end? Did you find another place to bathe?”

“A friend’s house. And I eventually won her over again with my mother’s _fiskbullar,_ but that’s another story.” Selvig fished in his pocket and came out with his keys, then held them out. “You don’t cook, do you?”

Thor shook his head. “I tried to roast a dragon tail, once. It turned my friend into a lizard.”

“Then we definitely don’t want you braving the kitchen again.” Selvig leaned back against the picnic table and closed his eyes. “If you hurry, you can be done before they want to use it.”

Thor, with perhaps more wisdom than valor, took his advice. Of course, it was just as likely that Jane - who never slept well when she was in a bad mood - would get up to use the shower any moment. He finished off the water bottle and sighed.

Well, at least he was hydrated.


	5. Chapter 5

It was by secret and twisting ways that Loki of Asgard returned to the world which had raised her, ways perilous and lost to all civilized sight, so that when she at last presented herself before Heimdall (for to do otherwise was to make herself both invader and outlaw) she made a most wretched sight, her fine garments tattered and her fair skin marked with bruises. But she favored the Guardian of the Bifrost with a rueful smile as she curtsied.

“You are not to return for near a year hence,” he rumbled warily. “I must tell the Queen of your coming, and it may go hard with you.”

“It is foremost to give her a message regarding my brother that I have come, good Heimdall,” said Loki, for whom truth was the most deft of lies. “And in token of my thanks for your many years of service and my gratitude for your forbearance in this, I bring a gift from Midgard. They have learned much in this past millennium, not least in the crafting of spirits. This they call ‘Scotch.’” She produced the bottle with a flourish. “Will you tell me what you think of it before you speak with my mother? I am sure there will not be time after, and I am most eager to know how you like it.”

Wary still were Heimdall’s eyes, but he had seen much of her (though not all, which she well knew galled him) and watched the long age of loyal service she had given Asgard. That there might be true malice in her heart would not occur to him, and a bottle of this Midgard Scotch was like to be worth whatever mischief she might play at with him. A week or two of pink hair or strange sounds ever behind him was a small price to pay for such a novelty, and it would not impair his duty to take her small bribe.

So he allowed himself to be persuaded. His smile suggested that he thought it very fine indeed, and he was still smiling when he tipped forward like a toppled tree.

Loki caught him before he could fall, seizing the bottle of mortal spirit and casting it out through the port into the endless void, for a Jotunheim sleeping draught in a Midgard bottle would give away far too much. She slipped a knife from her belt - of Jotun make, a trophy of business long past now tipped fresh with poison - and drove it into Heimdall's side just beneath his ribs. _How say you now, Watchful Heimdall, who no foe’s blade could take unaware?_ So she mocked him as she knelt by him until his sluggish blood had soaked the hem of her tattered garb, pulling the dagger free once more and binding the wound with her arts.

Neither wound nor poison would kill him, but he would sleep long and in much pain. That suited her purposes.

Then she rose at last and ran across the Bifrost itself toward the gates of Asgard with her bloodied hands held high. Stern were the guards who brought her before Frigga, Queen of Asgard, for some among their number had already gone to Heimdall’s aid and those who remained feared that some fault would be found with their duty. It was folly, of course, for Frigga would find their conduct worthy only of praise. But it was a useful folly, and Loki permitted herself to be bound and led like a criminal. The sympathy it would stir in Frigga’s heart would be useful.

The black rage in Loki’s own heart she buried deep, for it was not yet time for it to flower.

The queen was seated on the great throne, golden as Asgard itself and stern as Odin ever was. Some corner of Loki’s soul wished to sing, so fair and just did the woman she had called mother look upon that throne, but the coils of rage and malice clenched about her chest and crushed the pleasure into naught but a few cold, unshed tears.

“Loki!” Frigga herself spoke as queen and judge, but Loki saw well the worried affection in her foster mother’s eyes. “Explain your presence here and what you know of Heimdall.”

Upon the great carved floor before the throne Loki knelt unforced, her bloodied skirts spreading upon the golden metal, and she did not lift her bound hands to push the blood-flecked darkness of her hair from her face. Better to have that thin veil remain. She began with a truth, for it would sweeten the lie. “I sought your son, our exiled prince, and with him I dwelt on Midgard and would have remained most contentedly at his side had not cruel fate played her tricks upon us.

“It was a dusty and distant land where we dwelt in the company of some few mortals, their shelters rude and small if somewhat clever in their building, and there we were when the jotuns came upon us. They were not legion, for they must have come by secret ways, but they were too many for us and I fled to bring aid. I knew there was but little hope of help for him, exile that he is, but I could not bear to see him stand so bravely in spite of his diminished power without doing all I could. By swift and hidden ways I came to the Bifrost, and there I saw Heimdall bleeding upon his post.” Now again came the truth to bind up the edge of the lie, to give it fabric and substance. “I stopped to give him aid, for he might well have perished without it, and knew that an assassin had struck him so that Asgard would be blind to the peril which sought my brother’s life. Knowing no other way, I broke my oath of my own will and so came into your presence, Majesty.”

As she told her tale, Frigga remained regally still, posture and expression betraying nothing. Yet, as she was watching for it, Loki saw the queen’s fingers tighten on the golden edge of the throne when she told of danger to Thor.

The guards were not so careful with their hearts; their shifting in their posts told any with eyes of their agitation.

“Jotuns again walk on Midgard. These are fell times,” the queen commented. “Of course, given our treaty, Jotunheim will take up arms if we accuse them of breaking it, truly or no, nor can we break the terms of Thor’s banishment ourselves. The throne cannot act on this matter, as you already knew, Loki.”

The guards’ demeanor grew angry. A few even glared openly at the ruler of Asgard.

“However,” Frigga continued, as Loki had been certain she would, “the cunning of Loki is well known. None would be surprised to learn she had secretly acquired royal arms to protect the prince.”

The quiet outrage among the guards paused as they took this in. Then sly grins crept onto many faces, and all looked on Frigga with loyalty and admiration.

“I am greatly smitten with despair and grief, my Queen, and would beg the mercy of privacy to weep my bitter tears,” Loki said, performing her own part in the deception which Frigga so wisely and unknowingly laid atop Loki’s own. “I am not free to roam the halls of Asgard, so I beg you all to retire and leave me. Perhaps the passage of an hour will restore my wits.”

Frigga took a moment to look like she was considering it. “Very well, daughter. Guards, leave us.”

The warriors filed out, many of whom gave not-so-subtle gestures of encouragement to Loki. The last of their footsteps echoed in the great hall as the doors were sealed.

Frigga rose at once, descended the steps and knelt, casting the bonds from her daughter’s wrists and then catching up Loki in her arms.

“My daughter,” she whispered fiercely. “It gladdens my heart to see you, though I would have us meet on different terms.”

“No terms could be more bitter,” Loki answered in all truth, her own arms wrapped for one more moment around her teacher from the very cradle. “I would give much to linger, but time presses and the Queen of Asgard cannot tarry with one who is soon to be disgraced and cast down. Think fondly of me no matter what comes to pass, I beg you.” The cold tears on her cheeks were no artifice, though none she could have devised would have served her better. “I would it were a week and not a moment that I could again be your daughter, but Thor waits for my return and I would bring the greatest of weapons to the task.”

Frigga took a moment to gently smooth ebony strands from Loki’s face, tenderness and worry furrowing her brow. Then she sighed and stood, pulling Loki to her feet as well. “The Destroyer is known and well-feared among the Jotuns,” the queen said, striding back to the throne. “It will surely kill or drive out those who would harm Thor.”

“I will make sure it cuts down all of them,” Loki murmured at Frigga’s heels, for her wrath was very near the surface now that she was so close to its consummation. “I will save him from their hands and make them pay for the thought of taking him from us.”

Compassion and a preference for diplomacy made Frigga known in the court’s mind as soft and gentle--which she was. But they might have been surprised to see how nearly mother and foster-daughter shared their looks of bloody fury as she pressed Gungnir into the sorceress’s hands. “Burn their flesh from their bones and their bones from Midgard. And send me word when you and Thor are both safe.”

Then she showed her the runes to touch and the words to speak.

“Let half an hour pass before using it. I must be elsewhere, in full sight of many.”

“As you say, mother.” Loki bowed her head and watched Frigga leave from beneath lowered lids, her fingers caressing the golden haft of Gungnir with a rage very near to lust burning within her. The image of Jane and her little attendant burning in the Destroyer’s gaze danced in her eyes, of that frail collection of shacks they called a town sunk beneath a molten lake of glass, of the very sky of Midgard ablaze. Of the tears on Thor’s face, for she would not slay him. Never that. She would only make him watch.

There would be no hiding her crime after, of course. Heimdall would wake or some venturesome fool would steal down for a look or Frigga would come to know by any of a thousand ways. From the moment she had returned, she had known there would be nothing for her at the end but death.

Better a bower of flame and bone than a cold eternity of watching Thor love all but her. She seated herself upon the throne of Asgard and laid the spear of the Allfather across her lap, and cold tears ran unheeded down her cheeks.

In the depths of Asgard, death and fire wrapped in metal began to stir at her summons.

* * *

No longer covered in dust, Thor sat upon the wooden table. He had been right to select it the night before; it was outside the small range of Lady Jane’s territory, but still close enough that he might defend her from Loki’s ill will.

The bottle Friend Selvig had given him sat empty on the bench.

The door to the trailer opened. The Lady Darcy walked up to him, squinting in the morning light. Her hand was in her pocket, and Thor was fairly certain it contained the small thrower of lightning bolts.

“Why are you still here?”

Thor swallowed. “I decided to part company with Loki. She has gone, but I fear she might harm Jane. Jane does not want me near her, but I cannot leave her unprotected.”

The girl blinked.

“I can’t decide if that makes you a bigger douche or a smaller one. But, just between you and me,” she said, leaning in and lowering her voice unnecessarily, “Jane’s even more upset about your fight than she was when the spooks took her science. I’d ship you two if you can make it up to her.”

Despite the great magic it was, the servant girl often managed to confound the Allspeach. Still,  Thor thought he more or less understood. “I thank you, Lady Darcy. I will endeavor to make her up.”

The girl looked like she was trying not to laugh, and then caught sight of something over his shoulder.

“What in the Comic Con...”

“My pri....ah... Thor!” Volstagg’s great booming voice was both a welcome echo of home and most unexpected in this distant land; Thor’s first thought was that it was some trick of Loki’s, and so his fist were clenched in useless readiness when he swung about and found his dearest friends arrayed before him in their full arms and armor. Even Sif’s blade was in her hand, a sure sign of the foulest trouble, and they spread out around him while Volstagg blundered amiably along through his praise of how well Thor was looking and how many jotun he must have slain to win free of their foul trickery, and about that time Hogun finally bestirred himself to a few words.

“Where are the jotuns? We saw no sign of them.” Hogun was not a man given to jest or fancy. It was a brusque warrior’s question that expected a plain answer.

Thor shook his head. “Nor will you. There are none on Midgard.”

Fandral and Sif looked at him as if he had gone quite mad, and Hogun (as was his wont) looked grim. Volstagg resorted to looking most amiably confused. “But the Queen said...” he began.

“Implied,” Fandral corrected.

“Aye, one or the other, that jotuns had set upon you in great numbers!”

A great foreboding settled upon Thor’s heart. “There are none,” he repeated. “Was there any sign of Loki?”

Sif, whose frown had been deepening by the moment, jerked a nod. “She came herself. To ply our Queen with falsehoods, it appears. But to what purpose?”

There was a great and terrible sound much like the crash of thunder, but Thor knew in his bones it was not. Just as he knew that the black clouds which now rose above the insufficiently distant hills near the town were no storm.

“Fuck,” Darcy said with fervor, and ran back to the trailer.

The dread was gone from Thor, fear and sorrow in its stead. He opened his mouth to explain, but another great noise burst forth, and he thought he could hear townspeople screaming.

Jane, Darcy and Selvig poured out of the trailer, first trying to get a look at whatever had made the noise, then staring openly at the Asgardians. Pale and trembling with fury, Jane stalked up to Thor.

“Explain.”

“Loki has taken control of the Destroyer,” he told her. “I can guess she means to kill you, Lady Jane. It appears she cares not who else might die.”

“Or she’s enjoying it,” Sif added bitterly, sparing only a single look for Jane. “We have to stop her.”

“Well yeah,” Jane exclaimed, then looked over Sif and the Warriors. “I mean, we could really use your help.”

Thor wanted so much to embrace her in that moment--tiny and frail even compared to his weakened state, Jane’s courage and passion still blazed in the face of terror. But she stood apart from him, and he did not.

“Lady Sif. Your sword is the strongest,” he said openly. Volstagg grunted in offended pride, but said nothing. “Will you guard the Lady Jane while we face the device?”

Sif’s tawny eyes were wounded when they turned back to him, a note of pleading to her voice. “You are much weakened, my lord, and the Destroyer is....” she did not go on, perhaps out of mercy for Darcy and Jane or perhaps because she had not the heart. Instead she said only, “I would go by your side.”

None of them, together or alone, was a match for the device. Thor, perhaps, might have had a chance were he at his full power; but their best hope was only to spare the lives of the mortals. A long battle that would end in the deaths of all who fought it.

Sif, of course, knew that. She’d seen the device on the battlefield, burning through rank upon rank of Jotun. She knew and she asked to die with him.

It was a sweet, slender knife of pain that pierced Thor’s heart. Brave, strong, honorable, kind Sif had been in love with him since the beginning. It was with care that he clasped her forearm. “I am sorry, shieldsister, but without you the Midgardians will perish. Guard them and lead them to safety.” Hopefully, Loki would have given up before Sif could return and seek a warrior’s death.

She bowed her head so that he would not see her tears and laid her shield and finest sword in his hands before she turned to obey, leaving his heart even heavier than before. Jane called after him, but he did not dare look upon her now - it might steal the determination from him that was all he had left of his illusion of worth. He had been blind to the hearts of those nearest to him, unworthy of Mjolnir, foolish and petty and blinkered as a carthorse. But he was a warrior still, and he could at least make a good death in defense of these people.

In defense of the woman he loved and one who had loved him, though he was worthy of neither.

“So you’ve got a plan, then?” Fandral asked as he led them down toward the far edge of the town and the sea of smoke and flame that seemed to roll in upon it like a tide. “Because I think we could definitely do with a plan.”

“Draw the Destroyer away from the town,” he said. “Occupy it long enough for the townspeople to escape.”

“And then?”

“And then,” Thor said, strapping Sif’s shield over the mortal garb, “we meet again in Valhalla.”

No one spoke for a moment.

“Yes, of course, a glorious end for us all one day,” Fandral said, a bit of desperation showing in his eyes. “But, truly, what is the plan?”

****

The Warrior Princess--though Darcy was certain, somehow, that she wouldn’t appreciate the ‘princess’ part--was tall. And built like an MMA fighter. And yet still quite feminine, even with the big shiny armor and the sword (which was her second sword, because she’d given the first to Thor, which meant she had backup equipment and that was cool). It was like meeting the offspring of Wonder Woman and Sir Lancelot. Darcy thought she might be having a sexuality crisis.

“I am Sif. Thor wishes me to bring you to safety,” she was telling Jane, not looking very happy about it. “I would rather fight the enemy, but I value his esteem above glory.”

Jane met Sif’s gaze steadily--but, like, two feet lower--and crossed her arms. “I’m not going to just sit here, or run away. My work is here.”

Sif let out the same frustrated sigh Darcy associated with her sophomore English teacher. “I can easily subdue and carry you. Would you rob both of us of our dignity?”

“Ladies, please,” Selvig started. He got two murderous looks for his trouble. He shut up.

Then the arguing started back up. Darcy wondered how long before Sif made good on her threat. She definitely looked like she could bench press all three of Team Jane.

“Hey,” Darcy said slowly, “I bet she could get us inside that Area 51 bubble.”

Both women stopped, looked at Darcy. Jane’s eyes started to sparkle.

“Thor needs his hammer, right?” Jane proposed. “I can take you to it. It’s a few miles out of town.”

A sly, predatory smile spread across Sif’s features. Darcy was definitely having a sexuality crisis.

****

Half the main street of Puente Antiguo was in flames, shards of sand burned to glass whipping through the air on a murderous wind, and Thor - who had stood on the scenes of many great battles of terrible destruction - was in the midst of yet another terribly discomfiting discovery. It seemed that mortals found breathing smoke to be most uncomfortable and unhealthy, that the merest edge of glass was sufficient to cut their skin, that even a solid tremor was enough to bring them to their knees. He had been vaguely aware of such impediments before, of course, but it was a far more compelling education to be suffering such ill effects himself.

The third time that Hogun had to pull Thor back to his feet, the Odinson felt shame. In his weakness, he had only slowed his comrades and was but a fly to the Destroyer, making not a scratch on its surface. The only reason he was still alive, he thought, was that Loki had not yet chosen to cut him down. He was no longer sure she would not.

She had cut down enough mortals. In the initial attack, nearly a whole block had been razed with the mortals still inside and the air stank with the smell of their charred bodies.

Thor nodded to Hogun, stood on his own. He raised Sif’s blade once more and faced the Destroyer. It was burning the alehouse favored by Selvig, metal and glass melting under the onslaught, the spirits igniting from the heat so tremendous that no direct contact was necessary. There had been people inside before, Thor knew, but he saw with satisfaction that there were no bodies in the wreckage.

He had done that much. The longer he fought, the more hope blossomed in his chest that there would be no more slaughter.

“Loki!” he roared. “Stop this!”

The great metal hulk of the Destroyer turned and seared a track of glass across the street, black smoke boiling from the asphalt where the hot light touched, and the arc of it threw the Asgardians back among the buildings to crash and thunder against brick and stone. All but Thor, who went untouched. Then the blunt metal face turned aside, venting fresh searing light into the bookshop Jane loved. It flared like a tinderbox.

Thor charged and struck the device across the legs, drawing sparks and little else. “To what end is this, Loki? It will gain you nothing but my rage!”

The Destroyer ignored him, sweeping its torrent of ruin across the length of the street, shattering and burning. Mortals screamed in the distance, but he knew not if it was death or fear that claimed them. He hacked at the metal of his father’s juggernaut and scarce scraped it.

Loki’s voice, low and raw and dripping malice, hummed from the metal as if beaten from it by a hammer. “It will burn your heart out, oh Mighty Thor, for you can do nothing save weary your arm. Nothing but watch this town burn, and its people with it.”

Fandral and Hogun appeared at the thing’s sides, driving at the knee joints simultaneously, while Volstagg charged from the husk of the alehouse. There were a few moments of clangs, grunts and flame, and then the Destroyer was moving towards the whole parts of town, the Warriors Three struggling to take their feet again.

Thor ran after it. He caught up just before it rounded a corner onto a side street full of panicking mortals. He watched the light and shimmer of heat build up in the helmet. The man from the animal emporium looked death in the face and froze in terror.

_“NO!”_

Thor’s mortal body forced itself between the villager and the Destroyer, heat searing his skin, and unnaturally slowly he saw the flame gush forth to end him. Instinct brought his arms up to cover himself with Sif’s shield, but he knew it would add but fractions of a second to his life.

The very air caught fire, the shield burned Thor’s skin, and then the flame was bursting over his head and into the air.

Loki had pulled her attack.

He did not have much time to think about it, for almost immediately he felt his old power returning to him. Grinning up at the man he’d saved, he held out his right hand and _called._

****

“So when they came bursting in here, boss, do you think they had a plan?” Clint Barton leaned up against the wall of the Central Artifact Enclosure (or the big hexagon they built around the hammer, but SHIELD preferred the acronym) with a hand on his pistol and watched the two hipster scientists, the intern, and the refugee from the Middle Ages poking and tugging at the hammer that hadn’t moved since the damn locals found it. “Because they don’t look like it to me.”

A strange half-smile played on Coulson’s face as he watched the group playing King Arthur badly. “‘Step one: get in. Step two: question mark. Step three: hammer.’” He checked the screen that tracked the reinforcement quinjets and the one with the satellite feed of the rampaging tin man. “I’m hoping that Step Four involves taking on the walking flamethrower somehow.”

“Maybe Xena is going to hit him with it.” Clint warded off Coulson’s eyebrows with a shrug. “I watch TV sometimes. I’m not a monk. I still think I should go shoot it with arrows.”

“We tried rocket launchers and it didn’t do much. The crazy people with medieval weapons are having better luck.” Coulson turned back to the comedy act in the mud. “Twenty minutes to Red Pill One. I hope they get step two figured out.”

The three women staggered back, panting, and gesticulated in an amusingly animated fashion. Then the hammer, without consulting anyone, shot straight up in the air and then rolled over and took off for town like a cruise missile. Wonder Woman and hipster boss traded a look and then practically barreled past Clint and over Coulson.

“Sorry,” Foster shouted.

“We require your transport.”

“We’ll trade it back for my iPod!” the intern hipster added over her shoulder, already on the way out. Clint looked at Coulson, after them, back at Coulson.

“I can’t wait to hear how you write this up,” he said.

* * *

 

The cold metal of the throne room floor did little to soothe the ache in Loki’s skull when Asgard swam back into focus around her, and Gungnir was still hot to the touch of her seared fingers. She struggled up onto her elbows, shook her head and found that the room went with it, forced air into uncooperative lungs. Frozen tears, lingering on her cheeks and now shaken loose, shattered on the floor’s golden carving.

It was not a struggle to remember what had happened. The image of her Thor in all his thunderous majesty hurtling down into the very face of the Destroyer was etched indelibly in her mind, so perfect in every detail that she was sure it would never leave her. The hammer had returned to him at the last, saved the people of that wretched town for him, restored his glory.

Judged him worthy and left her nothing, not even vengeance.

She could have laid down on the floor and waited for Frigga, imprisonment, death, Ragnarok. It tempted the ashes where her heart had been.

But she was Loki, and so she gathered up the spear of the Allfather and dragged herself up against the weight of the pain and the despair. Stood on her own feet. Began to walk.

Thor would come back to see justice done. To see Frigga judge her. She bared her teeth and flung the doors wide with a wave of her hand, tumbling guards to the floor and scarcely noticing, caring not at all. Illusion capered and danced around her, and more jabbering fools rushed past her unseeing. She limped on alone, eyes fixed before her, marking out the halting paces one by one.

It was ten thousand, five hundred and seventy-three steps from the foot of the throne to the Observatory’s door. In the two hours it took her to walk it, no eye beheld her going.

The guard taking Heimdall’s place did not see her, either, but she did notice. Gersemi could hear a moth alighting on a flower at a hundred miles’ distance, or her name from anywhere in the Nine Realms.

“Whoever you are, be gone from here. None are permitted.”

Loki’s laughter clawed the walls with talons of ice. “I will wait, daughter of Freyja. Your duty will call you soon, and I would see who comes. Or raise Hofund against me and try Heimdall’s blade against Gungnir, knowing one of us will perish and your duty go undone. I care not.”

The guardian set her jaw. “Then reveal yourself and wait, Lady Loki, but do it outside my threshold.”

“As you wish.” The cloak of invisibility fell from her shoulders, and it was a pain-edged relief like the slackness of a clenched fist. Loki welcomed the pain like wine on parched lips and leaned upon the spear, the wind of the void playing upon the dark tangles of her hair, and waited - as she had always waited when she did not travel at his side - for the Odinson to come home.

It did not take very long.

The Observatory whirled to life, shuttering Gersemi from view, and then slowed to allow Thor and his four companions to pass. The colors of the Bifrost glowed and danced below her, casting her tattered garb and wounds in a thousand shades. He did not look surprised to see her waiting for him, and strode to her until there was scarce an arm’s span between them.

“You have done much harm, Loki.” Already the clouds of Asgard began to gather above Thor’s displeasure. “Have you finished?”

“Does all that you love before me lie cold in Hel or broken in ruins?” she answered him, a brave serpent’s smile upon her lips. “When it does, ask me then if I have finished.”

His face closed to mimic the stern blankness of Odin, but the rumble of the clouds betrayed his pain. “I will not allow you to cause more destruction,” he said, and took her arm. His followers arrayed around her - to escort her back to the palace and the cells beneath, no doubt.

“Then you will have to kill me,” she whispered, drawing to him as if she were more his lover now than ever, “for no cell will hold me while I live. I will go to your sweet Lady Jane in the night and I will make her scream for you until her last breath while you do not come, never come to save her from the cruelties I will visit on that pathetic mortal sl-”

“You will not!” He cast her down upon the bridge with the shout, and Loki prepared herself for the legendary blows of the God of Thunder.

It was a sharp disappointment when they did not come. Instead, Thor bent again, took both her arms in his hands this time, and pulled her to her feet.

“We go.”

“To a cage?” Her eyes flashed bitter, venomous fury, and she drove a cunning heel into his instep to twist herself from him and grasp the spear. “I will not, save you be caged with me. Shall we live all eternity in one of the Allfather’s boxes, you and I and no other soul?”

Sif sought to tear the spear from her, and she kissed a lovely line of blood from the shieldmaiden’s cheek with the sharp edge of the blade. “Touch me again and the Bifrost will run red,” she hissed between her teeth. “How can you bear him to choose that wan creature over you?”

Her eyes upon Loki and her hands at the ready, Sif let her wound bleed. “If it is to see him joyful, then I bear it gladly, and still retain his friendship.”

“What is that, but to be the hound at his feet?” Loki spat her disgust, stepping back until she came to the very edge of the bridge so they could not circle behind her - well she knew their minds, for she had been one of them. “To fetch him mead while he dreams of her, comfort him when he tires of her, watch another take her place. I would sooner be the bane of his days than again be such a _friend_  as that.”

Thor seemed distressed, and the Warriors Three shocked despite themselves, but Sif merely held her gaze. “Then it is as I had always feared; there is naught but hunger and poison in your heart.”

“As you say, so let it be.” Loki let the spear fall to a low guard, for despair clung thick to her and her strength was well nigh spent. “But in honor of times past, I suggest you run.”

Then she smote the Bifrost itself with the tip of Gungnir and loosed all its power upon that rainbow span, the crystal moaning and cracking beneath her as the channels which bound the great energies of the bridge began to give way. The warriors staggered back to the safe side of the great fissures in the bridge, and Gersemi charged from the Observatory, Heimdall’s sword angled to attack. They might well both have died there, Gersemi’s blade in her heart and the broken bridge spilling the guardian into the void, but Thor caught Gersemi in mid-charge and flung her as if she were a javelin cast from his hand to Sif’s. The shieldmaiden tumbled her charge to the bridge and her three faithful minions snatched both up to flee as swift as Asgardian feet could carry them. Brave soldiers, all, but to fall into that endless void was something worse than death and they heeded Loki’s warning well.

But Thor did not, reaching out for her like a fool instead, and she struck him back with the haft of Gungnir as the crystal beneath her feet slivered like the webs of a spider. “Will you not go, Thor Odinson?” she called over the roar of the cracking bridge. “Now that you may never see her again, is your life not worth saving?”

“Still you do not understand!” he howled. “I cannot let you die, even if all of Asgard might wish it.” Another great crack, and the Observatory tilted dangerously out over the edge of nothing. “Take my hand!”

It was weakness that lifted one hand from the spear, the ache to touch him once more, but the bridge beneath her gave way and spared her such indignity. She fell, the spear still gripped in the fingers it had burnt, and then the sweet helplessness of her tumble into the void jolted to a stop.

The fool had caught the spear scarcely under the blade and would not let go, though the cracked broken crystal beneath him was poor promise of life. But it gave her one last look into his eyes, the sky-blue pain of them as he cried her name.

“To what purpose?” she whispered, and let go, and fell.

**********************

> The bright morning light of Agard glittered from the golden pinnacle of Odin’s palace like a delicate jeweled sun on the morning of Loki’s first feast day, as if the great hall itself meant to celebrate her acceptance as apprentice to Frigga in the ways of sorcery. But that dawnlight did not find her asleep in her bed or even in her rooms - she had woken long before in the reaches of the night and slipped out into the fields to stare up at the sea of stars, and it was there that Thor - woken from his own heavy sleep by dreams he could not name - had come upon her and been persuaded by her wide-eyed guile to plait fresh flowers in her raven hair. He did this with much protest, for a boy whose voice has just begun to deepen is wary of the least sign that might be deemed unmanly, but all his grudging protest was in show. After all, Loki could have had the most skilled hair-dressers in Asgard attend her on this day, but had chosen Thor’s blunt fingers instead.
> 
> His chest swelled with pride and love.
> 
> “I’m going to become a great sorceress, you know,” she said, her eyes on the rosy glow of the horizon. If the occasional clumsy tug of her hair hurt her, she didn’t show it. “Greater than mother, even. I’ll learn every spell of all the Nine Realms and no Jotun or Vanir or son of Sutr or Ymir will pass by me within quaking. And all the Ljósálfar noblemen will fawn on me in the courts of Alfheim, but I’ll pay them no mind. Even Baldur will turn his head when I go by.”
> 
> Thor laughed. “And feel great despair at your power. How could mere beauty compete?” The last flower was balking. Of course, when the young prince tried to force it into the plait, he crushed the stem. Frowning, he threw it aside.
> 
> “Another flower!”
> 
> She plucked one from the field and turned to hold it out to him, her smile setting her face alight. “I won’t pay him any mind, either,” she whispered like a secret, pressing the flower into Thor’s fingers. “But I’ll be your faithful vassal when father makes you king, and make sure all the bards get the tales of your great victories right. None of this ‘numbers uncounted’ silliness.”
> 
> The boy laughed again. “Indeed. I have no doubt you will make a precise accounting.” Unbraiding the last few inches, Thor smoothed the strands and aligned the new flower among them. Then, concentrating to keep them all to rights, he completed the plait and tied it off with the golden ribbon his sister had handed him earlier.
> 
> “There. It is done, and fairly well for a warrior prince.” Dropping into a comfortable sprawl next to Loki, he grinned at her. “We will be the greatest in all the ages in all the realms.”
> 
> “And our stories will go down through all of time,” she said, laying her garlanded head upon his chest and smiling up at him contentedly. “Thor and Loki, Loki and Thor - inseparable.”
> 
> The gold of daylight began to chase away the rosy dawnlight, but neither stirred, for the visions that danced in their thoughts and were shared silent in their smiles bewitched them far past their time. But at last Frigga’s voice drifted down from the spires of the palace in impatient summons, and the press of the day drew them from their reverie.
> 
> Yet before they passed from that field, Loki took the young prince of Asgard’s hand in hers and wrapped one last ribbon about their hands and wrists until their fingers could not well be parted. She looked on him with emerald eyes that gathered the daylight until they gleamed with it, so that he was caught up from his confusion and only waited to know what she meant to do until she spoke.
> 
> “You will never be parted from me save by death, Thor Odinson, from now until the drowning of the worlds. So I swear by the limbs of Yggdrasill.”
> 
> The prince laughed for joy and amusement both. “Though there is hardly need for it, I too swear that I will let nothing separate us, Loki Friggasdatter.”
> 
> “Then there will be no trouble at all in you following me to the kitchens,” said Loki, unbinding the ribbon and tucking it away with the utmost of care, “where I am sure there are delights of all sorts to sample and mischief to be made. One cannot venture forth to glory or even a proper admiring in feasthall on an empty stomach.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now for some _Avengers_ action......

The big street behind the warehouse was filled nearly wall-to-wall with a Quinjet - even if it was built for trucks with Russian drivers, it was still a tight fit. The crew knew better than to chit-chat with the Black Widow, especially if she was being pulled out of a live op, and they only waited long enough to make sure she was strapped in before they put the bird in the sky. The caution was sensible - Russia still wasn’t exactly friendly territory for SHIELD, international cooperation or no international cooperation. After lift-off, she video-called Coulson on the plane’s secured tablet. Seeing his familiar, softly lined face was strangely calming.

“You’re going to have to tell me how you manage to keep your outfit nice. I always wind up doing something to my suits.”

The edges of her mouth twitched. It was as close as she could come to a smile. “I have flight time. You’re not with Stark. I’m impatient about the briefing. Humor me.”

He nodded. “At about 0400, the Tesseract went haywire. Selvig called it in. He, Fury and Barton were all in the containment chamber when it, uh, opened a portal. At least, that’s the only way to describe it and the only thing that makes sense. Selvig was also compromised, so he isn’t exactly available to answer questions.”

“Define ‘compromised.’” Ice sealed over the emotion in Natasha’s chest and sharpened the edges on her thoughts. Eliminating compromised assets was a primary function of her current posting, and it would be better not to be thinking of enjoying Selvig’s company if that became necessary.

The look on Coulson’s face said that he was, in his own way, locking down any number of disruptive feelings.

“Getting to that. Out of the portal came Loki, who you may remember made quite an impression in Puente Antiguo last year. She killed the techies, tried to kill Fury, and then used a mind-altering weapon on Barton and Selvig to make them help her escape with the Tesseract. That was made a lot easier when the energy from the portal caused an implosion that buried the New Mexico base and a quarter of its personnel.” He took a deep breath. “We’re on high alert and have brought in as many global agencies as possible, but we still haven’t found any of them. That’s why we need Banner.”

Some part of Natasha relaxed. It was foolish, because she knew better than most that changes to the mind were not easily reversed, but SHIELD policy in cases of mental alteration defaulted to asset recovery and deprogramming instead of disposal. If Selvig was under some form of technological influence, the chances of being required to eliminate him decreased.

She did not allow herself to think about Agent Barton. She was well trained in not thinking about things it was not useful for her to think about. Analysis was a helpful distraction.

“Understood,” she said, to signify her compliance with the directive. “Have there been any credible sightings of Thor yet?”

“Not so far. None of the other known Asgardians, either, or people who could be unknown Asgardians.” He shrugged. “We’re having people scan for unusual storm activity. Foster’s research has been really helpful in that regard. I can see why she was so pissed when we took it.”

Natasha’s eyes clicked out of focus for a moment. “Move her immediately. Somewhere remote we can watch her.”

Coulson blinked thoughtfully. “Why do you say that?”

“You had me read into the Puente Antiguo file as the Red Team,” she reminded him, folding her hands in her lap, aware that she was adopting the body language of one of her long-term cover identities - a London-born professor of Russian literature who’d been very useful in the eastern Med - but not trying to correct it. It helped her think more clearly. Helena would never allow her judgement to be compromised by personal attachment or ego. “The interviews from Selvig and Foster’s team were uncooperative, but not uninformative. Loki has a known profile - she engages in activity designed to engage Thor’s attention, usually in a way that will cause him pain or discomfort. Therefore, it’s logical to conclude that she anticipates his eventual return in response to whatever she’s planning and that Foster is a likely target.”

Coulson was nodding. “Blowing up a town to get to him does support that theory. I’ll take care of Foster.” He sighed. “I wish the emotionally stable Asgardians would visit instead.”

“If they have any of those. Your friend the alien god didn’t leave you a signal watch, did he?”

The expression on Agent Coulson’s face could only be described as a pout. “We didn’t even get one word of debrief.”

“Gods are fickle. Who knew?” she deadpanned. The jokes were working for her.

They helped paper over the ice inside her.

* * *

The belly of one of SHIELD’s metal skycraft was a scant cage to hold Loki of Asgard - indeed, even her would-be captors thought so - but it amused to her to play the part of captive queen while the mortals bickered and cast wary eyes upon her. Amusement had been scant of late, for she had dwelt in places dark and wasted even by the standards of the Nine Realms during her ‘exile,’ if such it could be called. She might have remained content for the whole of the journey, there in her chains with the idle thought of what it might require to turn the shield-bearing warrior into her fawning guardian turning about her mind, had the sky not given the familiar trumpet of Thor’s fanfare.

Mortal ears might mistake the heralds of Thor for mere claps of hot, expansive air. But jewel-eyed Loki never would, and she could not contain the flinch of pain and desire which accompanied the thought of him. Her captors and their ‘airplane’ scarce slowed the God of Thunder in his wrath, and it was the work of a moment ere he swept her into the storm-decked sky in the clutch of his arm. The peals of thunder swallowed her laughter.

Landfall was a harsh slide up a rocky outcropping, Loki jostling against Thor’s armor before he set her roughly on her feet. A bruising grip around her arm held her in place while he looked her over, hair wild around a troubled face.

A moment later she was crushed to his chest in a fierce embrace. His voice shook through them both.

“Loki. I thought you dead.”

“A thought I entertained myself once or twice, but it bored me.” Now her laughter was softer, the sweet poison that had beguiled so many to their doom, and she twined her arms about him as if to erase what space lay between them entirely. “Did you mourn me long, my darling prince? Does a Queen still reign in Asgard who weeps for me, or has the Allfather shaken off his tiresome nap and chased away all mention of his ill-gotten prize? Surely Sif sheds me no tears while she warms your bed.”

With a half-growl Thor shoved her away. “Where is the Tesseract, Loki? What hateful scheme have you begun?”

“Oh, the bauble. So quick to the matter at hand. I have missed you,” she sighed like a lover, laying a delicate hand upon her bosom. “Will you beat me if I do not tell you? Turn me over to your precious human friends for the torments they dare not name true? Will you wager my life to save your beloved Midgard?”

Even in the flickering storm-light she could see his face turning red.

“Do I look to be in a gaming mood?” he roared. “Why have you made a pact with the Chitauri?”

She laughed at all his fury, high and fierce and wild with her own desire, and pranced upon the edge of the stone outcrop as if she did not dance upon the edge of a fall that would shatter a mortal’s limbs. “Walking worlds you’ve never seen and seeking my way back to the realms, I came upon them and they upon me. They’re simple folk, really - lovely company if you don’t mind dominance battles every hour and the foul stuff they eat. I thought and thought, my only love, and then it came to me - what better consolation to Loki Laufeysdatter than a throne? And what better way to win my love’s lost regard than putting all the troubles of this world that so furrow his brow to rest. Hunger, war, famine, pestilence; I’ll snuff them all before the harvest moon. Perhaps I’ll even make your Jane one of the ladies of my court - would that not please you, thunder’s lord?”

Thor was shaking his head in disbelief. “You believe your conquest benevolent?”

“I could hardly do worse than they do themselves. Two hundreds of millions sent to Hel by war and tyrants alone in but a hundred years - I’ll scarce spill a few drops of their blood in such a bucket.”

Now the rage had drained from Thor’s face and left only worry and sorrow to pull at his brow and lips. He stepped forward, hands gentle on her shoulders. “I fear your fall may have afflicted you, Loki. Come home and let Mother and her healers attend you.”

“Afflicted me.” She began to laugh again, wrapping her arms about him and pressing her lips to the lines at his cheeks and brow. “The fall afflicted me. Oh my beautiful, idiot prince. And what do you think they’ll do when they’ve cracked open my head and looked inside? Do you think they’ll pronounce all forgiven and forgotten, set me to knitting and gardening to soothe my troubled mind? And will my gracious, generous lord come and dote on his poor mad sister - though no sister am I, and never will be - and perhaps take some pleasure by stealth in her grateful company?” Then she threw herself from him, twirling about onto the prow of their lonely outcrop and dropping a curtsy before him worthy of the merest kitchen drudge before a king. “Oh yes, my prince, surely I want nothing more than such a sweet fate to befall me. But however will you get me back there without the Tesseract? How tragic that in my distracted state I’ve sent it off in the hands of mere mortal men. If only I could recall where I meant to find it again...”

Gripping Mjolnir tightly, Thor advanced in tightly coiled fury. “Listen well, Loki--”

It was really quite sweet that he almost liquified one of the Midgardians, so high had she stoked his passions. Lucky for both the Midgardian princelings that the shield proved so remarkable. Perhaps she’d have it as a prize. In any case, it made a most diverting entertainment. She would have to give it a name.

‘Let’s You and Him Fight’ might do. But perhaps something better would come to her.

* * *

The lack of furniture in her temporary prison was rather tiresome. It would have been suitable to her part to pace about looking displeased with her circumstances, but seeing Thor again had wearied her and the mortal Fury’s posturing had given her an itching desire to extract his guts to use as garlands. Under the circumstances, she elected to lay down upon the smooth ceramic and polymer floor and close her eyes. She wondered idly if the Odinson was apologizing for her again somewhere above, but she had no stomach to hear it if he was and kept her senses draw in close about her.

That it was the beat of her next visitor’s heart which she heard first and not the tread of boots was a sign of great skill. By Barton’s telling, that all but surely meant she was attended by Fury’s own red-gilt serpent. A smile curved her lips.

“I expected you later.”

A soft sigh of leather and synthetic garb filtered through the glass as the assassin folded her arms. “After the battle?”

“After Fury finished whatever tortures he concocted to loosen my tongue. Then you would come to me as a sister in an hour of pain, and I would unbend my innermost confidence to your waiting ear.” Loki shifted herself up on one elbow and studied Natasha Romanov through the veil of her lashes, the emerald and gold of her finery spilled around her on the hard white of the floor. “Is he trying to persuade Thor to do it himself? Do tell me that he is - the thought is a delightful one.”

The mortal shrugged one shoulder. “‘Good cop’ isn’t really my thing. Fury doesn’t know I’m here.” She opened her hand, showing a small device, then gestured to the mechanical eyes in the ceiling. “It’s on a loop now. I have you all to myself.”

Now Loki did open her eyes, assembling an expression of delighted interest which was not entirely feigned. “Fascinating. And what will you do with me now that you have me?”

The mortal held Loki’s gaze, but a flicker around her eyes betrayed anxiety. “I want to know what you’re going to do with Agent Barton.”

“Make use of him, obviously. He has a most practical set of skills, but surely you knew that.” Loki allowed herself a small moue. “You have a more personal interest?”

A flutter of lashes in an otherwise calm face. Oh, yes, the girl was entangled with the archer.

“After all this. After you’re queen of the world. What will you do with him when you don’t need his skills?”

“I could have him wait on me and oil me after baths, I suppose. But I think perhaps you would rather I returned him to you?”

Graceful fingers clenching subtly on her ingenious bracers, the mortal gave her only a curt nod. “I owe him a debt.”

Now Loki did smile in truth, and she rose from the floor so that she could draw nearer the girl and examine her more closely. For one of Midgardian descent, she was a fair and strong creature, and her composure was admirable. “Tell me.”

The girl hitched her shoulders a hair’s breadth and let her gaze flicker to the side. “I didn’t always work for SHIELD. They had reason to stop me. Agent Barton decided not to obey the kill order. He brought me in instead.”

“How noble,” Loki breathed, stirring the ashen coals of her heart to a dull glow. “Do you love him?”

The agent swallowed, shifted her weight. “Yes.”

“And what would you do for the man you love, Agent Romanoff?” Loki smiled, resting an arm on the arc of transparent ceramic between them and looking down at the mortal girl who had the nerve to bargain with a captive general for a single prisoner. It was inspiring, truly.

“Not let you out,” the mortal protested. “But regimes fall every day. I won’t weep over it, and you could use my skills after you’ve won power.” She held Loki’s eyes as she said it, only a hint of guilt tightening her throat. It was deliciously stoic.

Oh, yes. She could most assuredly enjoy this one. “The things that we do for the men we love,” she whispered, stroking her fingertips over the hard curve between them, and then she smiled most comfortably as she settled down on the bench mounted along the wall. “I could have your service either way, daughter of Midgard, but I think it would please me to have it willingly. When this fortress falls from the sky and this world kneels at my feet, if you still live, I will accept your fealty. And as for your archer, if he survives the work I have set him, I will make a gift of him to you. A most biddable one, I think you’ll find; more biddable than Stark and your beast, at least.”

The mortal exhaled, tension bleeding out of her posture as she did. “Agreed.”

“I believe your Midgard phrase is that it has been a pleasure doing business,” Loki murmured, her interest already cooling in spite of the lovely, poisonous thought of what use she might put the red-haired murderess to eventually. Something to make Thor weep, surely. The ceramic was pleasantly cold against her scalp, and it tempted her to close her eyes again. “You may leave me now.”

Only the sound of the mortal’s heartbeat retreating told Loki that she had been obeyed.

“We have a problem,” Natasha told Coulson over her com-unit while she double-timed the corridor for the lab deck. “Our guest has a plan to bring down the helicarrier, probably sooner rather than later, and Stark or Banner seems probable. Recommend we lock down the lab quietly.”

Coulson took in a breath in a way she associated with his pensive frowns. “The lab won’t hold Banner if he goes green,” he disagreed, tone still perfectly conversational. “And I don’t trust our tranq gas to work quickly enough, or at all. Banner will do much better if we just tell him.”

“If by ‘better’ you mean have a paranoid freakout around highly dangerous alien technology, I suppose you are probably correct.” Natasha’s peripheral vision kicked off a quick warning at the top of the stairs she was angling for, and she let out a breath. “Thunder god interception. At least tell Fury.”

“Agreed.”

“Lady Widow,” the Asgardian called to her. Quietly, for him. Still loudly enough for a few junior agents nearby to start snickering before she caught their eye with her best KGB glare. The demigod towered over her, statuesque face beautifully pained, and Natasha could see why Loki would go to such lengths to have it turn towards her. “Tell me what transpired.”

“Your sister - adopted - is impressively unhinged. Also experiencing severe clinical depression. Don’t you have mental health treatment in Asgard?” She folded her arms and gave him the glare, too, because he was in her way and obviously knew it. It failed to dent him.

He drew himself up, filling the corridor almost bulkhead to bulkhead. It gave Natasha an excellent view of the way his armor fit together. “Not as you do here. We have our own ways. But Loki has not been on Asgard or anywhere she could be helped.” He glared down at her. “What happened?”

“We spoke.” His expression darkened, and she raised a cold eyebrow in reply. “I’m not honestly sure what it would take to hurt her, so I didn’t try. I asked her a few questions and let her think she had an advantage on me. Leverage. She didn’t tell me a lot, but enough to guess how she might be planning to get out.” The brisk report failed to move him, and her mood sharpened. He was starting to waste her time. “How long has she been romantically obsessed with you, and when were you planning to tell us about it?”

It stoked her pride, just a little, that without even touching him she made the God of Thunder take a step back and gasp like she’d landed a battering ram to his ribcage. She shifted her weight, ready to dodge if he tried to strike her, but he kept his fists at his sides for the long moment he looked ready to pound her into the decking.

Then, abruptly, he turned and strode away. “What does it matter?” he asked bitterly, sure she was following. In fairness, she was. He was going her way. “She will not turn from her wickedness and I will not embrace her with it.”

A touch of sentiment moved under the ice in her chest, but it didn’t reach anything that mattered - certainly not the efficient calculating engines her teachers had built into her head. People weren’t complicated on the basic level, and even their complications were comprehensible if you were willing to break a few things getting where you were going. “You could save us all a lot of trouble and dead people if you did.”

If she had been someone else, she would have run into Thor’s armored back when he stopped short. He turned around, looking at her as if seeing her for the first time.

“Were it to save Asgard and all her warriors, I would not ask such a thing of a Midgardian. I help you keep her captive, and I will defend this realm against whatever she brings. You will not ask this of me again.”

Probably anyone else on the ship would have flinched from the cold judgement in those blue eyes. Maybe Stark would have been able to laugh it off, undentable as that powersuit in the hold, but it would still have drawn blood. Natasha felt nothing except the cold stillness inside her, and her smile was purely mechanical. Calculated. “Suit yourself. But if I could, I would. Simpler than a bullet in the brainstem and a lot more informative. Are you going to stand there all day?”

The way he stormed ahead of her, maybe it wasn’t Banner Loki was looking to set off, after all. She’d notify Coulson. Fortunately, there wasn’t any evidence that Asgardians - exceptional hearing or not - knew Morse.

* * *

Just as the SHIELD warriors commanded the skies - or would again soon, once Stark had seen to the aerial warship - they also held dungeons deep beneath the city Loki had nearly destroyed. Clean, plain corridors and nothing but boredom to torture someone with, but a dungeon all the same.

The soldiers led Thor down to the deepest level, one that held only a single cell behind several layers of vault doors. Midgardian technology guarded some of the walls, but runes of binding had been carved into others, and yet others protected by old mystical forces he had thought the mortals had forgotten.

Thor stepped through the second-to-last door. General Fury had not permitted the final barrier to be entirely opened. Instead, narrow vertical slats were moved aside, and the door became a gate of sorts.

A soft rasp drifted up out of the cell to him. “I was promised a drink, but my hosts seem to have forgotten.”

His chest tightened and he glanced balefully at the camera in the corner. “They assured me you have not gone without food nor water.”

Loki’s laughter hung on the air like tattered smoke. “I’m not starving myself, my darling prince, if that is what prickles your tender heart. A few bruises from your great green friend are still mending. Perhaps we ought to give him a try at fishing the World Serpent from the infinite sea - it might be amusing.”

Thor huffed in frustration. Of course she would jest. He tried to catch a glimpse of Loki through the gaps in the door, but could only see her legs stretched out on the bench. “We return to Asgard tomorrow.”

“Duty to the last,” she sighed, drawing her legs up until they vanished from his sight, and then he caught the turn of her head and the jet spill of her hair mingling with the darkness. The green of her eyes, catching the smallest fragments of light in the shadows to gleam out at him. “Do you think the All-Father will make it something with snakes, this prison of mine? The symbolism would appeal to him.”

Anything Odin thought up in that vein would be torturous, Thor knew. Even all the pain and death Loki had wrought on Midgard could not inure him to the thought of Loki suffering like that. For a moment, recklessly, he let himself consider aiding Loki in escape. Even insisting that she remain on Midgard to face mortal justice would be enough; this prison would not long hold her.

But Loki’s troubled mind would not be put to rest if she fled across the Realms. She would only try something like the Chitauri invasion again.

“You will receive the All-Mother’s justice,” Thor told Loki. “Father yet sleeps.” He didn’t try to stop himself from threading his fingers through the openings. “She will be merciful.”

Laughing again, as blood might spill from a reopened wound, she turned her face away. “I think I would rather have the snakes.”

Thor’s fingers tightened. He said nothing.

A whirl of shadow and green flashed across the distance between them, her fingers cold against his, her face limned with bruises near as dark as her hair but her eyes blazing through the narrow grate, and her voice bubbled up out of her in a hot, venomous whisper. “Did that little red-fletched falcon of Fury’s have the pleasure of her wayward bowman yet? She must have been delighted to have the prize she sought without the price. Surely she told you. Did she guess my price? Did she ask you to pay it, my noble beloved? I wish I could have seen your face. Such a little thing, for all those lives, and you let them die to keep it from me. I must repulse you so, bloodsoaked as I am. Or have I moved you, who would gamble a world on the glance of your eyes? But you will not tell me if I have, not if we wait until the ruin of Asgard. So I must wonder, for that is all I have in the prison of my days. At least the bars tell me more truth than my lord. Will your stargazer’s kiss take the taste of me from your mouth? But you do not go to her, have not gone to her, will not go tonight. Is it shame that keeps you from her, or something else? Something unfit for the eyes of your Midgard friends?”

Thor released the door, reached for Loki’s fingers with his own, covered them as much as he could reach. “Nay,” he answered, and there was a tremor in his voice. “Simply that after tomorrow I will not see you for a very long time.”  

“My prince.” From his touch she did not shy away, though her eyes flooded with hot tears that did not quench their fires. “So you will take me to Asgard where I may breathe the same air that you do, then exile me from your presence? Surely you will make a fine king, now that you can teach the All-Father lessons in the arts of cruelty.”

It twisted his gut more than her knife had. Knowing she meant it to didn’t help.

“It must be, Loki.” He felt his own eyes sting. “I would that it were not so, as I long for days past, but it must be.”

“Oathbreaker,” she cursed him, for she could see he would not be moved, and tore herself from the grate to cast herself away from him. He could not see her then, but he could hear her weeping.

So was she still, when Fury’s soldiers came to remind him that his time was spent.


End file.
